
Glass ^.L A -7-^ 






OLD GREEK EDUCATION 



OLD GREEK EDUCATION 



BY 



J. P. MAHAFFY, M,A. 

FELL. AND TUTOR, TRIN. COLL., DUB. 

KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF THE SAVIOUR 

AUTHOR OF "social LIFE IN GREECE" "a HISTORY OF GREEK LITERATURE" 

"a PRIMER OF GREEK ANTIQUITIES" ETC. 



V 



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^^WASH;^^' 



NEW YORK 

HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 

1882 



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\v, .^ 



TO 

THE GREEK NATION 

STILL, AS OF OLD, THE PIONEER OF EDUCATION 
IN EASTERN EUROPE 

THIS LITTLE BOOK 
IN MEMORY OF THE YEAR 1 88 1 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



Readers unfamiliar with Greek will find the 
equivalent of the Greek words cited in the nearest 
word printed in italics. 

The scope of this book precludes me from ac- 
knowledging individually my many obligations to 
other authors, both for curious facts and for learned 
references. 



CONTENTS. 



OIIAPTEE PAGE 

Introduction 1 

I. Infixncy 7 

II. Earlier Childhood 14 

III. School Days— The Physical Side 21 

IV. School Days— The Musical Side— The Schoolmaster . 32 
V. Thd Musical Side — Schools and their Appointments . . 42 

VI. The Subjects and Method of Education — Drawing and 

Music 57 

VII. The Last Stage of Education— Military Training of the 

Ephebi ..... G9 

VIII. Higher Education — The Sophists and Socrates ... 78 

IX. The Rhetors— Isocrates 01 

X. The Greek Theorists on Education — ^Plato and Aristotle 1)9 
XL The Growth of Systematic Higher Education — Univer- 
sity Life at Athens 116 

Index 141 



GREEK EDUCATION. 



INTRODUCTION. 

§ 1. We hear it often repeated that human nature is 
the same at all times and in all places ; and this is urged at 
times and places where it is so manifestly false that we 
feel disposed peremptorily to deny it when paraded to us 
as a general truth. The fact is that only in its lower 
activities does human nature show any remarkable uni- 
formity ; so far as men are mere animals, they have strong 
resemblances, and in savages even their minds seem to 
originate the same fancies in various ages and climes. But 
when we come to higher developments, to the spiritual 
element in individuals, to the social and political relations 
of civilized men, the pretended truism gives way more and 
more to the opposite truth, that mankind varies at all 
times and in all places. As no two individuals, when care- 
fully examined, are exactly alike, so no two societies of 
men are even nearly alike ; and at the present time there 
is probably no more fertile cause of political and legislative 
blundering than the assumption that the constitution suc- 
cessfully worked out by one people can be transferred by 
the force of a mere decree to its neio'hbors. All the recent 
experiments in state -reform have been based on this as- 
sumption, as if the transferrence of a House of Commons 



2 GEEEK EDUCATION. 

in any real sense were not as impossible as the transferrence 
of Eton and of Oxford to some foreign society. 

Although, therefore, we cannot deny that past history 
contains manv fruitful lessons for the betterino- of our 
own time, it is not unlikely that the tendency of the pres- 
ent widely informed but hasty age is to exaggerate the 
likenesses of various epochs, and to overrate the force of 
analogy in social and political reasoning. Historical paral- 
lels are generally striking only up to a cei'tain point ; a 
deeper knowledge discloses elements of contrast, wide dif- 
ferences of motive, great variations in human feeling. 

§ 2. But as we go back to simpler states of life, or 
earlier stages of development, the argument from analogy 
becomes stronger, and the lessons we may derive from 
history, though less striking, are more trustworthy. This 
is peculiarly the case with the problem of education as 
handled by civilized nations in various ages. The material 
to be worked upon is that simpler and fresher human nat- 
ure, in which varieties are due only to heredity, and not 
yet to the numerous artificial stimulants and restraints 
which every society of mature men invents for itself. The 
games and sports of children, all over the world, are as 
uniform as the weapons and designs of savages. The de- 
lights and disappointments of education have also remained 
the same, at least in many respects. The conflict of theo- 
retical and practical educators, and the failure of splendid 
schemes for the reform of society by a systematic training 
of youth, mark every over-ripe civilization. Here, then, if 
anywhere, we may gain a distinct advantage by contem- 
plating the problems, which we ourselves are solving, under 
discussion in a remote society. The more important and 
permanent elements will stand out clearer when freed from 



GREEK EDUCATION. 6 

tlie interests and prejudices of our own day, and from the 
necessities of our own situation ; and thus we may be 
taught to regain freedom of judgment and escape from the 
iron despotism of a traditional system. For if it be the 
case that in no department of our life are we more thor- 
oughly enslaved than on the question of education, if it 
be true that we are obliged here to submit our children to 
the ignorance and prejudice of nurses, governesses, priests, 
pedants — all following more or less stupid traditions, and 
all coerced by shackles which they want either the knowl- 
edge or the power to break — then any inquiry which may 
lead us to consider freely and calmly what is right and 
what is not right, what is possible and what is not possible, 
in education cannot but have real value, apart from purely 
historical or learned considerations. 

§ 3. In fact, the main object of this book is to interest 
men who are not classical scholars, and who are not pro- 
fessional educators, in the theory of education as treated 
by that people which is known to have done more than 
any other in fitting its members for the higher ends and 
enjoyments of life. The Greeks were far behind us in the 
mechanical aids to human progress; they understood not 
the use of electricity, or of steam, or of gunpowder, or of 
printing. But, in spite of this, the Greek public was far 
better educated than we are — nay, to some extent, because 
of this it was better educated. For Greek life afforded 
proper leisure for thorough intellectual training, and this 
includes first of all such political training as is strange to 
almost the whole of Europe ; secondly, moral training of 
so high a kind as to rival at times the light of revelation ; 
thirdly, social training to something higher than music and 
feasting by way of recreation ; and, fourthly, artistic train- 



IX 



4 GREEK EDUCATION. 

ing, which, while it did not condescend to bad imitations 
of great artists, taught the public to understand and to 
love true, and noble ideals. 

Why must these great ends of education be obscured 
or lost by the modern wonders of discovery, which should 
make them more easy of attainment and wider in circula- 
tion ? Were the Greeks better off in education than we 
are, and, if so, why were they better off? or is all this al- 
leged Greek superiority an idle dream of the pedants, with 
no solid basis in facts? If it is real, can we not discover 
the secret of their superiority, and use it with far wider and 
deeper effect in our Christian society ? or is human nature 
of narrow and fixed capacity, and does the addition of wide 
ranges of positive science and of various tongues mar ir- 
revocably the cultivation of the pure reason and of the aes- 
thetic faculty ? These are the problems which will occupy 
the following pages, not in their abstract form ; they will 
be considered in close relation to the success or failure of 
the old Greeks in discussing and solving them. 

§ 4. There have been only two earlier nations and one 
later which could compete with the Greeks in their treat- 
ment of this perpetual problem in human progress. We 
have first the Egyptian nation, which by its thorough and 
widely diffused culture attained a duration of national pros- 
perity and happiness perhaps never since equalled. Isolated 
from other civilized races by geographical position, by lan- 
guage, and in consequence by social institutions, the Egyp- 
tians prosecuted internal development more assiduously 
than is the wont of mere conquering races. The few 
foreign possessions acquired by the Egyptians were never 
assimilated, and the civilization of the Nile remained iso- 
lated and unique. We have reason to know that this re- 



GREEK EDUCATION. 5 

fined social life, which is perpetuated in pictures on the 
monuments of the land — this large and various literature, 

iof which so many fragments have been recovered in our 
century — was not created without a diffused and systematic 
education. In Plato's " Laws," ^ the training of their young- 
children in elementary science is described as far superior 
to anything in Greece. But, unfortunately, the materials 
for any estimate of Egyptian education, in its process, are 
wanting. We can see plainly its great national effects ; 
we have even some details as to the special training in 
separate institutions of a learned and literary class ; but 
nothing more has yet been recovered. If we knew the 
various steps by which Moses became " learned in all the 
wisdom of the Egyptians," an interesting field of compari- 
son would be opened to us ; and here, no doubt, we should 
find some of our own difficulties discussed and perhaps 
solved by early sages, still more by an enlightened public 
opinion, showing itself in the establishment of sound tra- 
iitions. And, no doubt, from the dense population, the 
subdivision of property and of labor, and the absence of a 
^reat territorial aristocracy, the education of the Egyptians 
nust have corresponded to our middle -class and primary 
-i^ystems, together with special institutions for the higher 
Iraining of the professions and of the literary caste. 

§ 5. If we could command our material, we mio-ht seek 
elsewhere for analogies to the education of our nobility 
and higher gentry. We know through Greek and Roman 
sources, as well as through the heroic poetry of the " Shah- 
.nameh," that the Aryan nobles who became, under Cyrus, 
the rulers of Western Asia, were in character, as they were 
in blood, allied to the Germanic chiefs and Norse Vikings, 

»F. 819. 



6 GllEEK EDUCATION. 

with their love of daring adventure, their chivalry, and 
their intense loyalty to their appointed sovereign. In 
these qualities they were strangely opposed to the demo- 
cratic Greeks, on whom they looked with contempt, while 
they w^ere appreciated in return only by a few such men 
as Herodotus and Xenophon. Indeed, such devotion to 
their sovereign as made them leap overboard to lighten 
his ship in a storm was confounded by the Greeks with 
slavish submission. Oriental prostrations, and other signs 
of humiliation. Nevertheless, the men whom the Greeks 
long dared not look in the face — the conquerors of half 
the known world, the successful rivals of the Romans for 
the dominion of the East — faced death under Xerxes and 
, the last Darius with other feelings than those of slavish 
submission. Herodotus, in his interesting and sympathetic 
account of them, says their children's education consisted 
V of three things — to ride, to shoot, and to tell the truth. 
If he had added a chivalrous loyalty to their kings like 
that of the French nobles in the last century, he would 
have completed the picture, and sketched a training which 
many an English gentleman considers little short of perfec- 
tion. 

§ 6. The Romans are the only other ancient people who 
stand near enough to us to suggest an inquiry into their 
education. And it may be said that they combined the 
dignity of noble traditions with the practical instincts of 
a successful trading people. Hence Roman education, if 
carried on with system, ought of all others to correspond 
with that of Englishmen, who should combine the same 
qualities in carrying out an analogous policy, and in filling, 
to some extent, a similar position in the world. But so 
closely was all Roman culture based on Greek books and 



GREEK EDUCATIOI^. 7 

models that, although every people must develop individ- 
ual features of its own — and the Romans had plenty of 
them, as we may see from Quintilian — any philosophical / 
knowledge of Roman education must depend upon a pre- 
vious knov^'ledge of the Greeks. In many respects the Ro- 
mans were a race more congenial to the Eno-Iish, and hence 
by us more easily understood. In the coarser and strong- 
er elements of human character, in directness and love of 
truth, in a certain contempt of aesthetics and of specula- 
tion, in a blunt assertion of the supremacy of practical 
questions, in a want of sympathy, and often a stupid igno- 
rance and neglect of the character and requirements of 
subject races, the Romans are the true forerunners of the 
English in history. Burdened as we are with these defects 
of national character, the products of the subtler and more 
genial, if less solid and truthful, Hellenic race are partic- 
ularly well worth our consideration. This has been so 
thoroughly recognized by thoughtful men in our genera- 
tion as to require no further support by argument. It 
only remains that each of our Hellenists should do his best, 
in some distinct line, to make the life of the Greeks known 
to us with fairness and accuracy. 



CHAPTER I. 

INFANCY. 



§ 7. We find in Homer, especially in the " Iliad," indica- 
tions of the plainest kind that Greek babies were like the 
babies of modern Europe, equally troublesome, equally de- 

2 



8 GEEEK EDUCATION. 

lightful to their parents, equally uninteresting to the rest 
of society. The faraous scene in the sixth book of the 
"Iliad," when Hector's infant, Astyanax, screams at the sight 
of his father's waving crest, and the hero lays his hebuet 
on the ground that he may laugh and weep over the child ; 
the love and tenderness of Andromache, and her pathetic 
laments in the tw^enty- second book — are familiar to all. 
She foresees the hardships and unkindnesses to her orphan 
boy, " who was wont upon his father's knees to eat the 
purest marrow and the rich fat of sheep ; and w^hen sleep 
came upon him, and he ceased his childish play, he "VY^nld 
lie in the arms of his nurse, on a soft cushion, satisfied 
with every comfort." So, again, ^ a protecting goddess is 
compared to a mother keeping the flies from her sleeping 
infant, and a pertinacious friend^ to a little girl who, run- 
ning beside her mother, begs to be taken up, holding her 
dress and delaying her, and with tearful eyes the child 
keeps looking up till the mother denies her no longer. 
These are only stray references, and yet they speak no 
less clearly than if we had asked for an express answer to 
a direct inquiry. So we have the hesitation of the mur- 
derers sent to make away with the infant Cypselus, who 
had been foretold to portend danger to the Corinthian 
Herods of that day. The smile of the baby nnmans — or 
should we rather say unbrutes? — the first ruffian, and so 
the task is passed on from man to man. This story in 
Herodotus' is a sort of natural Greek parallel to the great 
Shakespearian scene, where another child sways his intend- 
ed torturer with an eloquence more conscious and explicit, 
but not, perhaps, more powerful, than the radiant smile of 
the Greek baby. Thus Euripides, the great master of pa- 
1 A 1 30. » n 7. ^ Herod, v. 93. 



GREEK EDUCATION. 9 

thos, represents Iphigcnia bringing her infant brother Ores- 
tes to plead for her with that unconsciousness of sorrow 
which pierces us to the heart more than the most affecting 
rhetoric. In modern art a little child, playing about its 
dead mother, and waiting with contentment for her awak- 
ing, is perhaps the most powerful appeal to human com- 
passion which we are able to conceive. 

On the other hand, the troubles of infancy were then as 
now very great. We do not, indeed, hear of croup or 
teething or measles or whooping-cough. But these are 
occasional matters, and count as nothing beside the inex- 
orable tyranny of a sleepless baby. For then as now 
mothers and nurses had a strong prejudice in favor of 
carrying about restless children, and so soothing them to 
sleep. The unpractical Plato requires that in his fabulous 
Republic two or three stout nurses shall be in readiness to 
carry about each child, because children, like game-cocks, 
gain spirit and endurance by this treatment ! What they 
really gain is a gigantic power of torturing their mothers. 
Most children can readily be taught to sleep in a bed, or 
even in an arm-chair ; but an infant once accustomed to be- 
ing carried about will insist upon it ; and so it came that 
Greek husbands were obliged to relegate their wives to an- 
other sleeping -room, where the nightly squalling of the 
furious infant might not disturb the master as well as the 
mistress of the house. But the Greek gentleman was able 
to make good his dariiaged rest by a mid-day siesta, and 
so required but little sleep at night. The modern father 
in Northern Europe, with his whole day's work and waking, 
is therefore in a more disadvantageous position. 
n) Of course, very fashionable people kept nurses, and it 
was the highest tone at Athens to have a Spartan nurse for 



JO GREEK EDUCATION. 

tlie infant, just as an English nnrse is sought out among 
foreign noblesse. We are told that these women made the 
child hardier, that they used less swathing and bandaging, 
and allowed free play for the limbs ; and this, like all the 
Spartan physical training, was approved of and admired 
by the rest of the Greek public, though its imitation was 
never suggested save in the unpractical speculations of 
Plato. 

Whether they also approved of a diet of marrow and 
mutton suet, which Homer, in the passage just cited, con- 
siders the luxury of princes, does not appear. As Homer 
was the Greek Bible— an inspired book containing perfect 
wisdom on all things, human and divine — there must have 
been many orthodox parents who followed his prescrip- 
tion. But we hear no approval or censure of such diet. 
Possibly marrow may have represented our cod-liver oil 
in strengthening delicate infants. But as the Homeric 
men fed far more exclusively on meat than their historical 
successors, some vegetable substitute, such as olive oil, 
must have been in use later on. Even within our memory 
mutton suet boiled in milk was commonly recommended 
by physicians for the delicacy now treated by cod-liver oil. 
The supposed strengthening of children by air and ex- 
posure, or by early neglect of their comforts, was as fash- 
ionable at Sparta as it is with many modern theorists, and 
it probably led in both cases to the. same result — the ex- 
tinction of the weak and delicate. These theorists parade 
the cases of survival of stout children— that is, their ex- 
ceptional soundness — as the effect of this harsh treatment, 
and so satisfy themselves that experience confirms their 
views. Now with the Spartans this was logical enough, 
for as they professed and desired nothing but physical re- 



GEEEK EDUCATION. 11 

suits, as tliey despised intellectual qualities, and esteemed 
obedience to be the highest of moral ones, they were per- 
haps justified in their proceeding. So thoroughly did they 
advocate the production of healthy citizens for military 
purposes that they were quite content that the sickly 
should die. In fact, in the case of obviously weak and 
deformed infants, they did not hesitate to expose them in 
the most brutal sense, not to cold and draughts, but to the 
wild beasts in the mountains. 

§ 8. This brings us to the first shocking contrast be- 
tween the Greek treatment of children and ours. We can- 
not really doubt, from the free use of the idea in Greek 
tragedies, in the comedies of ordinary life, and in theories 
of political economy, that the exposing of new-born chil- 
dren was not only sanctioned by public feeling, but actual- 
ly practised throughout Greece. Various motives com- 
bined to justify or to extenuate this practice. In* the first 
place, the infant was regarded as the property of its par- 
ents, indeed of its father, to an extent inconceivable to 
most modern Christians. The State only, whose claim 
overrode all other considerations, had a right, for public 
reasons, to interfere with the dispositions of a father. In- 
dividual human life had not attained what may be called 
tiie exaggerated value derived from sundry superstitions, 
which remains even after those superstitions have decayed. 
And, moreover, in many Greek states, the contempt for 
commercial pursuits, and the want of outlet for practical 
energy, made the supporting of large families cumbersome, 
or the subdivision of patrimonies excessive. Hence the 
prudence or the selfishness of parents did not hesitate to 
use an escape which modern civilization condemns as not 
only criminal, but as horribly cruel. How little even the 



12 GKEEK EDUCATION". 

noblest Greek theorists felt this objection appears from the 
fact that Plato, the Attic Moses, sanctions infanticide ^ un- 
der certain circumstances or in another form, in his ideal 
state. In the genteel comedy it is often mentioned as a 
somewhat painful necessity, but enjoined by prudence. 
Nowhere does the agony of the mother's heart reach us 
through their literature, save in one illustration used by the 
Platonic Socrates, where he compares the anger of his pu- 
pils, when first confuted out of their prejudices, to the fury 
of a young mother deprived of her first infant. There is 
something horrible in the very allusion, as if in after-life 
Attic mothers became hardened to this treatment. We 
must suppose the exposing of female infants to have been 
not uncommon until the just retribution of barrenness fell 
upon the nation, and the population dwindled away by a 
strange atrophy. 

§ 9. Iti the many family suits argued by the Attic ora- 
tors, we do not (I believe) find a case in which a large fam- 
ily of children is concerned. Four appears a larger num- 
ber than the average. Marriages between relations as close 
as uncle and niece, and even half-brothers and sisters, were 
not uncommon ; but the researches of modern science have 
removed the grounds for believing that this practice would 
tend to diminish the race. It would certainly increase any 
pre-existing tendency to hereditary disease; yet we do not 
hear of infantile diseases any more than we hear of delicate 

J Exposing children, instead of killing them, left open the chance 
that some benevolent person would save them, from pity, or avari- 
cious person sell them as slaves — a result which, no doubt, often 
occurred. Thus the parents could console their consciences with a 
hope that the benevolence of the gods had prevented the natural con- 
sequences of their inhuman act. 



GREEK EDUCATION. 13 

infants. Plagues and epidemics were common enough, 
but, as already observed, we do not hear of measles, or 
whooping-cough, or scarlatina, or any of the other constant 
persecutors of our nurseries. 

As the learning of foreign languages was quite beneath 
the notions of the Greek gentleman, who rather expected 
all barbarians to learn his language, the habit of employing 
foreign nurses, so useful and even necessary to good mod- 
ern education, was well-nigh unknown. It would have 
been thought a great misfortune to any Hellenic child to 
be brought up speaking Thracian or Egyptian. Accord- 
ingly, foreign slave attendants, with their strange accent 
and rude manners, were not allowed to take charge of 
children till they were able to go to school, and had learn- 
ed their mother tongue perfectly. 

But the women's apartments, in which children were 
kept for the first few years, are closed so completely to us 
that we can but conjecture a few things about the life and 
care of Greek babies. A few late epigrams tell the grief 
of parents bereaved of their infants. Beyond this, classical 
literature affords us no liojht. The backwardness in cult- 
ure of Greek women leads us to suspect that then, as now, 
Greek babies were more often spoiled than is the case among 
the serious Northern nations. The term "Spartan mother" 
is, however, still proverbial ; and, no doubt, in that excep- 
tional State discipline was so universal and so highly es- 
teemed that it penetrated even to the nursery. But in the 
rest of Greece we may conceive the young child arriving 
at his schoolboy age more wilful and headstrong than most 
of our more watched and worried infants. Archytas, the 
philosopher, earned special credit for inventing the rattle, 
and saving much damage to household furniture by occu- 
pying children with this toy. 



14 GEEEK EDUCATION. 



CHAPTER II. 



EARLIER CHILDHOOD. 



8 10. The external circumstances determining a Greek 
boy's education were somewhat different from ours. We 
must remember that all old Greek life, except in rare cases, 
such as that of Elis, of which we know nothing, was dis- 
tinctly town life; and so, naturally, Greek schooling was day 
schooling, from which the children returned to the care of 
their parents. To hand over boys, far less girls, to the 
charge of a boarding-school was perfectly unknown, and 
would, no doubt, have been gravely censured. Orphans 
were placed under the care of their nearest male relative, 
even when their education was provided (as it was in some 
cases) by the State. Again, as regards the age of going to 
school, it would naturally be early, seeing that day schools 
may well include infants of tender age, and that in Greek 
households neither father nor mother was often able or 
disposed to undertake the education of the children. In- 
deed, we find it universal that even the knowledge of the 
letters, and reading, were obtained from a schoolmaster. 
All these circumstances would point to an early beginning 
of Greek school life ; whereas, on the other hand, the small 
number of subjects required in those days, the absence 
from the programme of various languages, of most exact 
sciences, and of general history and geography, made it 
unnecessary to begin so early, or work so hard, as our un- 
fortunate children have to do. Above all, there were no 
competitive examinations, except in athletics and music. 



GREEK EDUCATION. 15 

The Greeks never thought of pronioting a man for " dead 
knowledge," but for his living grasp of science or of life. 

Owing to these causes, we find the theorists discussing, 
as they now do, the expediency of waiting till the age of 
seven before beginning serious education — some advising 
it, others recommending easy and half-playing lessons from 
an earlier period. And then, as now, we find the same 
curious silence on the really important fact that the exact 
number of years a child has lived is nothing to the point 
in question ; and that while one child may be too young at 
seven to commence work, many more may be distinctly 
too old. 

§ 11. At all events, we may assume in parents the same 
varieties of over-anxiety, of over-indulgence, of nervousness, 
and of carelessness about their children ; and so it doubt- 
less came to pass that there was in many cases a gap be- 
tween infancy and school-life, which was spent in playing 
and doing mischief. This may be fairly inferred, not only 
from such anecdotes as that of Alcibiades playing with his 
fellows in the street,^ evidently without the protection of 
any psedagogue, but also from the large nomenclature of 
boys' games preserved to us in the glossaries of later gram- 
marians. 

These games are quite distinct from the regular exercises 
in the palaestra (of which we will speak presently, as form- 
ing a regular part of education). We have only general 
descriptions of them, and these either by Greek scholiasts 
or by modern philologists. But, in spite of the sad want 
of practical knowledge of games shown by both, the in- 
stincts of boyhood are so uniform that we can often frame 
a very distinct idea of the sort of amusement popular 
^Plut. "Alkib.,"c. 2. 



16 GREEK EDUCATION. 

among Greek cLildren. For young boys, games can hardly 
consist of anything else than either the practising of some 
bodily dexterity, such as hopping on one foot, higher or 
longer than is easy, or throwing farther with a stone ; or 
else some imitation of war, such as snowballing, or pulling 
a rope across a line, or pursuing under fixed conditions ; or, 
lastly, the practice of some mechanical ingenuity, such as 
whipping a top or shooting with marbles. So far as cli- 
mate or mechanical inventions have not altered our little 
boys' games, we find all these principles represented in 
Greek games. There was the hobby- or cock-horse (mXajuoj/ 
7rapaf3}]pai), standing or hopping on one leg {acrKojXia^eiy), 
which, as the word cktkoq implies, was attempted on a skin- 
bottle filled with liquid and greased; blindman's-buff 
()(a\»cJ7 fjLvla), in which the boy cried, "I am hunting a 
bracken jiy^'' and the rest answered, " You will not catch 
it ;" games of hide-and-seek, of taking and releasing pris- 
oners, of fool in the middle, of playing at king — in fact, 
there is probably no simple child's game now known which 
was not then in use. 

A few more details may, however, be interesting. There 
was a game called KwdaXia/jLog, in which the Kin'daXov was a 
peg of wood with a heavy end sharpened, which boys 
sought to strike into a softened place in the earth so that 
it stood upright, and knocked out the peg of a rival. This 
reminds us of the pegtop-splitting which still goes on in 
our streets. Another, called Sa-rpaKiv^a, consisted of toss- 
ing an oyster-shell in the air, of which one side was black- 
ened or moistened, and called niffht, the other dai/, or sun 
and rain. The boys were divided into two sides with 
these names, and, according as their side of the shell turned 
up, they pursued and took prisoners their adversaries. On 



GKEEK EDUCATION. 17 

the other hand, eTroffTpaKiffjjioQ was making a shell skip 
along the surface of water by a horizontal throw, and 
winning by the greatest number of skips. Etc o>i2L\Xav, 
though a general expression for any contest, was specially 
applied to tossing a knuckle-bone or smooth stone so as to 
lie in the centre of a fixed circle, and to disturb those which 
were already in good positions. This was also done into 
a small hole {rpona). They seem to have shot dried beans 
from their fingers as we do marbles {(jypvyiyda). They spun 
coins on their edge ()(aXao-//dc). 

Here are two games not perhaps so universal nowadays. 
XlevTaXidl^eLv was a technical word for tossing up five peb- 
bles or astragali, and receiving them so as to make them lie 
on the back of the hand. MrjXoXordr], or the beetle game, 
consisted in flying a beetle by a long thread, and guiding 
him like a kite. But by way of improvement they at- 
tached a waxed splinter, lighted, to his tail ; and this cruelty 
is now practised, according to a good authority (Papaslio- 
tis), in Greece, and has even been known to cause serious 
fires.^ Tops were known under various names (/je/x/Bt^, 
arpofiPoc, (TrpojjtXog), one of them certainly a humming-top. 
So were hoops (-po)(ot). 

Ball-playing was ancient and diffused, even among the 
Homeric heroes. But as it was found very fashionable 
and carefully practised by both Mexicans and Peruvians at 
the time of the conquest, it is probably common to all civ- 
ilized races. We have no details left us of complicated 
games with balls; and the mere throwing them up and 
catching them one from the other, with some rhythmic mo- 
tion, is hardly worth all the poetic fervor shown about this 

» This seems to be the interpretation of " Achar." 920 sq., accord- 
ing to Grasberger. 



18 GEEEK EDUCATION. 

game by the Greeks. But possibly the musical and danc- 
ing accompaniments were very important, in the case of 
grown people, and in historical times. Polhix, however — 
our main authority for most of these games — in one place ^ 
distinctly describes both football and handball. "The 
names," he says, " of games with balls are — tTriaKvpog^ (pai- 
i/tV^a, a7r6ppat,Lg, ovpavia. The first is played by two even 
sides, who draw a line in the centre, which they called 
aKvpoQ, on which they place the ball. They draw two other 
lines behind each side, and those who first reach the ball 
throw it {piKTovcriv) over the opponents, whose duty it is to 
catch it and return it, until one side drives the other back 
over their goal line." Though Pollux makes no mention 
of kicking, this game is evidently our football in substance. 
He proceeds : " (paivlr^a was called either from Phaenindes, 
the first discoverer, or from deceiving ((perad^eiu),''^ etc. — 
we need not follow his etymologies — " and airoppa^ig con- 
sists of making a ball bound off the ground, and sending 
it against a wall, counting the number of the hops accord- 
ing as it was returned." And as if to make the anticipa- 
tions of our games more curiously complete, there is cited 
from the history of Manuel, by the Byzantine Cinnamus 
(a.d. 1200), a clear description of the Canadian lacrosse, 
a sort of hockey played with rackets : " Certain youths, 
divided equally, leave in a level place, which they have be- 
fore prepared and measured, a ball made of leather, about 
the size of an apple, and rush at it, as if it were a prize 
lying in the middle, from their fixed starting-point (a goal). 
Each of them has in his right hand a racket (joa/33ov) of 
suitable length ending in a sort of flat bend, the middle of 
which is occupied by gut strings dried by seasoning, and 

' ix. 103. 



GKEEK EDUCATION. 19 

plaited together in net fashion. Each side strives to be 
the first to bring it to the opposite end of the ground 
from that allotted to them. Whenever the ball is driven 
by the pafi^oi (rackets) to the end of the ground, it counts 
as a victory." ' 

Two games, which were not confined to children, and 
which are not widely diffused, though they exist, among 
us, are the use of astragali, ov knuckle-bones of animals, 
so cut nearly square as to serve for dice ; and with these 
children threw for luck, the highest throw (sixes) being ac- 
counted the best. In later Greek art representations of 
Eros and other youthful figures engaged with astragali are 
frequent. It is to be feared that this game was an intro- 
duction to dice-playing, which was so common, and so often 
abused, that among the few specimens of ancient dice re- 
maining there are some false, and which were evidently 
loaded. The other game to which I allude is the Italian 
morra, the guessing instantaneously how many fingers are 
thrown up by the player and his adversary. It is surpris- 
ing how fond Southern men and boys still are of this sim- 
ple game, chiefly, however, for gambling purposes. 

There was tossing in a blanket, walking on stilts, swing- 
ing, leap-frog, and many other similar plaiys, which are ill- 
understood, and worse explained, by the learned, and of no 
importance to us, save as proving the general similarity of 
the life of little boys then as now. 

We know nothing about the condition of little girls of 
the same age, except that they specially indulged in ball- 

^ I do not know whether so late an authority is valid proof for the 
earl}' Greek origin of n game. Most certainly the polo played at 
Constantinople at the same time came from an equestrian people, 
and not from theGreeks. 



20 GKEEK EDUCATION. 

playing. Like our own cliildren, the girls probably joined, 
to a lesser degree, in tlie boys' games, and only so far as 
they could be carried on within-doors, in the court of the 
house. There are graceful representations of their swing- 
ing and practising our seesaw. Dolls they had in plenty, 
and doll-making (of clay) was quite a special trade at 
Athens. In more than one instance we have found in 
children's graves their favorite dolls, which sorrowing par- 
ents laid with them as a sort of keepsake in the tomb. 

§ 12. Most unfortunately, there is hardly a word left of 
the nursery rhymes and of the folk-lore, which are very much 
more interesting than the physical amusements of children. 
Yet we know that such popular songs existed in plenty ; 
we know, too, from the early fame of ^sop's fables, from 
the myths so readily invented and exquisitely told by Plato, 
that here we have lost a real fund of beautiful and stimu- 
lating children's stories.^ And of course here, too, the gen- 
eral character of such stories throughout the hum?in race 
was preserved. 

^ There is a possibility of recovering some of them by a careful 
collection of the vavapicrfMiTa of the modern Greeks, which in many 
cases doubtless correspond to theii' forerunners the (iavKoXrjfiaTa of 
the old Greeks. Stories of Mormo and Gorgo and the Empousa are 
still current to frighten children, as are also (about Arachova) songs 
about Charos (the old Charon), the ruthless genius of death. The 
belief in Lamia is still so common that tTrvi^ev rj Adfiia — Lamia 
choked it — is a common expression when a child dies suddenly. Cf. 
Bei/i'^eXo?, "On the Private Life of the Old Greeks," Athens, 1873. 



GEEEK EDUCATION. 21 



CHAPTER III. 

SCHOOL DAYS THE PHYSICAL SIDE. 

§ 13. The most striking difference. between early Greek 
education and ours was undoubtedly this, that the physi- 
cal development of boys was attended to in a special place 
and by a special master. It was not thought sufficient for 
them to play the chance games of childhood ; they under- 
went careful bodily training under a very fixed system, 
which was determined by the athletic contests of after- 
life. This feature, which excites the admiration of the 
modern Germans, and has given rise to an immense litera- 
ture, is doubtless all the more essential now that the men- 
tal training of our boys has become so much more trying ; 
and we can quite feel, when we look at the physical de- 
velopment of ordinary foreigners, how keenly they must 
envy the freedom of limb and ease of motion, not only as 
we see it suggested by Greek statues, but as we have it be- 
fore us in the ordinary sporting Englishman. But it is 
quite in accordance with their want of practical develop- 
ment, that while they write immense books about the phys- 
ical training of the Greeks, and the possibility of imitat- 
ing it in modern education, they seem quite ignorant of 
that side of English education at our public schools ; and 
yet there they might see in practice a physical education 
in no way inferior to that described in classical authors. 
I say it quite deliberately — the public -school boy, who is 
trained in cricket, football, and rowing, and who in his 
'.holidays can obtain riding, salmon -fishing, hunting, and 



22 GREEK EDUCATION. 

shooting, enjoys a physical training which no classical days 
ever equalled. The athletic part of this training is enjoyed 
by all boys at our public schools, though the field sports 
at home only fall to the lot of the richer or more fortu- 
nate. 

§ 14. When we compare what the Greeks afforded to 
their boys, we find it divided into two contrasted kinds of 
exercise : hunting, which was practised by the Spartans 
very keenly, and no doubt also by the Eleans and Arca- 
dians, as may be seen from Xenophon's "Tract on [Hare] 
Hunting;" and gymnastics, which in the case of boys were 
carried on in the so-called palaestra, a sort of open-air gym- 
nasium (in our sense) kept by private individuals as a 
speculation, and to which the boys were sent, as they were 
to their ordinary schoolmaster.^ We find that the Spartans, 
who had ample scope for hunting with dogs in the glens 
and coverts of Mount Taygetus, rather despised mere exer- 
cises of dexterity in the palaestra, just as our sportsmen 
would think very little of spending hours in a gymnasium. 
But those Greeks who lived in towns like Athens, and in 
the midst of a thickly populated and well-cultivated coun- 
try, could not possibly obtain hunting, and therefore found 
the most efficient substitute. 

Still, we find them very far behind the English in their 

^ The exact relation of the ancient palcestra and the gymnasium 
has much exercised the critics. It seems phiin that the former was 
a private establishment, and intended for boys ; the hitter more gen- 
eral, and resorted to by yonng men, not only amateurs and beginners, 
but also more accomplished athletes. Hence the terms are often 
confused. In the " Tract on the Athenian State," however, the author 
mentions palisstras as built by the demos for its public use ; and 
this tract, whoever may be its author, does not date later than 415 

B.C. 



GREEK EDUCATIOIT. 23 

knowledge or taste for out-of-door games, such as cricket, 
football, liockey, golf, etc. — games whicli combine chance 
and skill, which combine strength with dexterity, and which 
intensely interest the players while keeping them in the 
open air. Yachting, though there w'ere regattas, was not 
in fashion in ancient Greece. Rowing, which they could 
have practised to their heart's content, and which was of the 
last importance in their naval warfare, was never thought 
gentlemanly, and always consigned to slaves or hirelings. 
There are, indeed, as above quoted from Pollux, descrip- 
tions of something like football and lacrosse, but the ob- 
scurity and rarity of any allusions to them show that they 
are in no sense national games. Running races round a 
short course was one of their chief exercises, but this is no 
proper out-of-door game. 

§ 15. Accordingly, the Germans, in seeking to base their 
physical education on Greek lines, seem to make the cap- 
ital mistake of ignoring that kind of exercise for boys 
which vastly exceeds in value any training in gymnasia. 
The Eton and Harrow match at Lord's is a far more beau- 
tiful sight, and far better for the performers, than the boj^s' 
wrestling or running at Olympia. And besides the variety 
of exercise at a game like cricket, and the various intelli- 
gence and decision which it stimulates, a great part of the 
game lies not in the winning, but in the proper form of 
the play, in what the Greeks so highly prized as eurytlimy — 
a graceful action not merely in dancing and ball-playing, 
but in the most violent physical exertion. 

But the Greeks had no playgrounds beyond the palaestra 
or gymnasium ; they had no playgrounds in our sense ; and 
though a few proverbs speak of swimming as a universal 
accomplishment which boys learned, the silence of Greek 

3 



24 GREEK EDUCATION. 

literature on the subject^ makes one very suspicious as to 
the generality of such training. 

With this introduction, we may turn to some details as 
to the education of Greek boys in their palaestra. 

§ 16. In one point,, certainly, the Greeks agreed more 
with the modern English than with any other civilized 
nation. They regarded sport as a really serious thing. 
And unless it is so regarded, it will never be brought to 
the national perfection to which the English have brought 
it, or to which the Greeks are supposed to have brought 
it.. And yet even in this point the Greeks regarded their 
sports differently from us, and from all nations who have 
adopted Semitic ideas in religion. Seriousness of the re- 
ligious kind is with us quite distinct from the seriousness 
of sport. With the Greeks it was not, or rather serious- 
ness was not with them an attribute of religion in any 
sense more than it was of ordinary life. They harmonized 
religion and sports, not by the seriousness of their sports 
so much as by the cheerfulness — a Semite, ancient or mod- 
ern, would say by the levity — of their deities ; for the gods^ 
too, love sport {cpikoTcaiyiiovEQ yap Ka\ ol deoi), says Plato in 
his " Cratylus," a remarkable and thoroughly Greek utter- 
ance. The greatest feasts of the gods were celebrated by 
intensifying human pleasures — not merely those of the 
palate, according to the grosser notion of the Christian 
Middle Ages, but sesthetical pleasures, and that of excite- 
ment — pleasures, not of idleness, but of keen enjoyment. 

§ 17. The names applied to the exercising-places indicate 
their principal uses. Palcestra means a wrestling -place; 
gymnasium originally a place for naked exercise, but the 

1 Herodotus, indeed (viii, 89), speaks of the generality of Greek 
Bailors as able to swim. 



GREEK EDUCATION. 25 

verb early lost this connotation and came to mean mere 
physical training. We hear that a short race-course {dp6- 
fiog) was often attached to the palasstra, and short it must 
have been, for it was sometimes covered in (called ^i/oro'e), 
probably with a shed roof along the wall of the main en- 
closure. 

There is no evidence to decide the point whether the 
boys went to this establishment at the same age that they 
went to school, and at a different hour of the day, or at a 
different age, taking their physical and mental education 
separately. And even in this latter case we are left in 
doubt which side obtained the priority. The best authori- 
ties among the Germans decide on separate ages for palaes- 
tra and school, and put the palasstra first. But in the 
face of many uncertainties, and some evidence the other 
way, the common-sense view is preferable that both kinds 
of instruction were given together, though we know noth- 
ing about the distribution of the day, save that both are 
asserted to have begun very early. Even the theoretical 
schemes of Plato and Aristotle do not help us here, and it 
is one of those many points which are now lost on account 
of their being once so perfectly obvious and familiar. 

We here discuss the physical side first, because it is 
naturally consequent upon the home games, which have 
been described, and because the mental side will naturally 
connect itself with the higher education of more advanced 
years. And here, too, of the great divisions of exercises 
in the palaestra — wrestling and dancing^ more properly ex- 
ercises of strength and of grace — we will place athletics 
first, as the other naturally leads us on to the mental side. / 

§ 18. In order to leave home and reach the palasstra 
safely as well as to return, Greek boys were put under the 



26 GEEEK EDUCATION. 

charge of a pcedagogue, in no way to be identified (as it 
now is) with a schoolmaster. The text " The Jaw was our 
schoolmaster, to bring us unto Christ" has suffered from 
this mistake. The Greek pcedagogue means merely the 
slave who had the charge of bringing his master's sons 
safely to and from school, and guarding them from mis- 
chief by the way. He was often old and trusty, often old 
and useless, always ignorant, and never respected. He was 
evidently regarded by young and gay boys as a great in- 
terference to enjoyment, insisting upon punctual hours of 
return, and limiting that intercourse with elder boys which 
was so fascinating, but also so dangerous, to Greek children. 

The keeper of the palsestra and trainer (TraLdorpijjr}^) was 
not appointed by the State, but (as already mentioned) 
took up the work as a private enterprise, not directed by, 
but under the supervision of, the State, in the way of police 
regulation. We have, indeed, in the speech of ^schines 
"Against Timarchus," very stringent laws quoted to the effect 
that no palaestra or school might be open before or after 
daylight ; that no one above boys' age might enter or re- 
main in the building ; and the severest penalties, even death, 
were imposed on the violation of these regulations. But 
we know that, even if true, which is very doubtful, the text 
of the laws here cited became a dead letter, for it was a 
favorite resort of elder men to see the boys exercising. 
Restrictions there were, of course ; a fashionable lounge 
could in no way serve as a strict training-school, and we 
know that at Sparta, even in the gymnasia, the regulation 
strip or go was enforced to prevent an idle crowd. 

§ 19. There is figured on many vases, often in brilliant 
colors, the interior of the palaestra. It is denoted by the 
bearded Hermes — a rude bust of the patron god. A middle- 



GREEK EDUCATION. 27 

aged man in a sliort mantle, or clilamys, with a rod or 
wand in liis Land, is watching and directing the exercises 
of the boys, generally a wrestling-match. We know also, 
from the pentathlon being once introduced at Olympia for 
boys, that its five exercises were those in which they were 
usually trained — leaping, running, throwing the discus, the 
spear, and wrestling. For elder boys, boxing and the pan- 
cratium were doubtless added, if they meant to train for 
public competitions, but ordinary gentlemen's sons would 
never undergo this special training and its hardships. In- 
deed, the Spartans strictly discountenanced such sports, 
both as likely to disfigure, and as sure to produce quarrels 
and ill-will. The lighter exercises were intended to make 
the frame hardy and the movements graceful, and were in- 
troduced by a thorough rubbing of the skin with olive oil, 
which, after the training, was scraped off with a special 
instrument, the orXeyy/c, as may be seen in the splendid 
Vatican statue of the athlete scraping his arm, the so-called 
Apoxyomenos, referred to as an original of Lysippus. In 
luxurious days they also took a bath, but this was hardly 
the case with ordinary boys — indeed, the water supply of 
Greek towns was probably scanty enough, and the nation" 
not given to much washing. 

§ 20. There remain little or no details as to the exact 
rules of training practised in the ordinary palaestras, but 
we may fairly assume them to have been the same in kind 
(though milder in degree) as those approved for formal 
athletes. If w*e judge from these, we will not form a high 
idea of Greek training. Pausanias informs us that they 
trained on dry cheese, which is not surprising, as they 
were (like most southerns) not a very carnivorous people. 
But when a known athlete (Dromeus^) discovered that meat 

' Van^. vi. 7, 9. 



28 GREEK EDUCATION. 

diet was the best, tliey seem to have followed up the dis- 
covery by inferring that the more of a good thing the bet- 
ter ; and, so athletes were required to eat very large quanti- 
ties of meat, owing to which they were lazy and sleepy 
when not engaged in active work.^ We need not suppose 
that the diet of ordinary boys was in any way interfered 
with, but this particular case shows the crude notions which 
prevailed, and the trainer came more and more to assume 
the part of a dietetic doctor, as is stated by Plato. 

§ 21. So much as to the conditions of good training; 
as to the performance, there are points of no less signifi- 
cance. All the learned Germans who write on these sub- 
jects notice that the Olympic races were carried oat on 
^ soft sand, not on hard and springy ground, so that really 
good pace cannot have been a real object to Greek run- 
ners.'' But, what is worse, they praise their zeal and en- 
ergy in starting (as we see on vases) with wild swinging of 
their arms, in spread-eagle fashion, and encouraging them- 
selves with loud shouts.^ This style of running may seem 
very fine to a professor in his study, but will only excite 
ridicule among those who have ever made the least practi- 

^ It was a curious rule at the Olympic games that the competitors 
were even compelled to swear that they had spent a month in train- 
ing at Elis, as if it mattered whether the victory was won by natural 
endowments only or by careful study. One would have thought that 
the importance of the contest would insure ample training in those 
who desired to win. 

^ I myself saw at the Olympic games now held at Athens, in the 
re-excavated stadion of Herodes, a sprint-race of two hundred yards 
over vine ground, cut into furrows, with dogs and people obstructing 
the course. Cf. MacmillarC s Magazine for September, 1876. 

^ Cf , for example, Grasberger, "Erziehung," etc., iii. 212, quot- 
ing Cicero, "Tusc. Disp.," ii. 23, 26. 



GEEEK EDUCATION. 29 

cal essay, or seen any competitions. But possibly the 
Greeks were not so uniformly silly in tins respect as tbey 
are now represented by commentators, for there is pre- 
served on the Acropolis at Athens one little-known vase 
on which a running figure has the elbows held tightly back 
in the proper way. We may also have grave suspicions 
about Greek boxing, from the facts that they weighted the 
hand heavily with loaded gloves, and that boxers are de- 
scribed as men with their ears, and not with their 7ioses, j 
crushed. We cannot but suspect them of swinging round, 
and not striking straight from the shoulder. This is fur- 
ther proved by the use of protecting ear-caps {ajuKpuridec) 
in boxing, a thing which no modern boxer would dream of 
doing. 

§ 22. All these hints taken together make us reasonably 
suspect that, as athletics, the training of the pcedoti'ibes 
was not what w^e should admire. But, on the other hand, 
the picturesque and enthusiastic descriptions of beautiful 
and well-trained Greek boys, coupled with the ideal figures 
which remain to us in Greek sculpture, prove beyond any 
doubt that they knew perfectly what a beautiful manly 
form was, and by what training it could be produced. Let 
us, however, not exaggerate the matter. Very few boys 
really equalled the ideal types of the sculptor; and if we 
make allowance for this, we may conclude that the finest 
English public-school boy is not inferior to the best Greek 
types in real life.^ Perhaps some advantage may have 

^ It is a perpetual and perhaps now ineradicable mistake, because 
we cannot see the real Athenians or Spartans of classical days, to 
imagine them in general like the ideal statues of the Greek artists. 
We find it even generally stated that beauty was the rule and ugli- 
ness the exception among them, in spite of Cicero's complaint, when 



N/ 



30 GREEK EDrCATION. 

resulted from the greater freedom of limb obtained by- 
naked training: and rubbino- with oil ; but the advantao-e of 
this over a modern flannel suit or tight athlete's dress is 
very small. Nevertheless, the English schoolboy is phys- 
ically so superior to the schoolboys of other European na- 
tions that we may count him, with the Greek boy, as al- 
most a distinct animal. 

What surprises us is that by regular training in the sim- 
plest exercises, such as running, leaping, wrestling, and 
throwing the discus or dart, sucli splendid results were 
ever attained. Or shall we say that it was not the wrest- 
J ling but the dancing side of Greek training which was of 
chief importance ? We may dismiss with a word the fab- 
ulous stories of athletic feats at Olympia, where a certain 
Chionis, a Spartan of early date (01. 28-31, dr. 660 e.g.), 
was said to have leaped fifty-two feet, and afterwards 
Phayllus of Croton fifty-five feet. We may infer, too, 
from the use of weights (aX-ijpeQ), that the jump was a 
standing one. Happily these assertions are only made by- 
late grammarians, and though some German critics are in- 
clined to extend their adoration of Greek training to this 
point, it will rather, witli practical readers, tend to discredit 
other statements made by the same authority. As we do 
not hear of a running jump, so we do not hear of a high 
jump either, at least in public games. Both may have been 
practised in the palaestra. The distance for a sprint-i;ace 
for men was two hundred yards, and somewhat shorter for 
boys. Their longest race at Olympia was twenty-four sta- 
dia (4800 yards, 2f miles), which the professors, without 

he was disiUusioned by a visit to Athens: " Quotusquisqiie enim 
formosus est ? Quum Athenis essem e gregibus epheborura vix sin- 
guli repeiiebantur." 



GREEK EDUCATION. 31 

any knowledge of tlie time in wliicli it was clone, think 
more wonderful than the fifty-five-feet jump, but which is 
equalled in many English sports of the present day. 

§ 23. Apart from the doubts here raised as to the per- 
fection of Greek training, let us revert, in conclusion, to 
the absence among elder boys of those out-of-door games, 
like cricket, which are so valuable for developing mental, 
together with physical, qualities. There is one feature in 
these games which the Greeks seem to have missed alto- 
gether, and which appears to be ignored in most German 
books on the reform of physical education in schools. It 
is that forming of clubs and teams of boys, in which they 
choose their own leaders, and get accustomed to self-gov- 
ernment and a submission to the superior will of equals, or 
the decision of public opinion among themselves. Plato 
saw long ago that the proper and peculiar intention of 
boys' sports was more mental than bodily improvement. 
But he confined himself to that part of the question which 
advocates the cultivation of spirit in boys as better than 
that which cultivates strength only. This is perfectly true, 
and no game is worthy the name in which spirit and intel- 
lio'ence cannot defeat brute streno-th. But there is little 
trace, save at Sparta, of any free constitution in boys' edu- 
cation, in which they manage their own affairs, fight out 
their own quarrels, and praise or censure according to a 
public opinion of their own. No Greek educator seems to 
have had an inkling of this, and the foreign theorists who 
have discussed educational reforms on the Greek models 
seem equally unaware of its importance. Yet here, if any- 
where, is the secret of that independence of character and 
self-reliance which is the backbone of the English constitu- 
tion and the national liberty. The Greeks were like the 



'./" 



32 GREEK EDUCATION. 

French and the Germans, who always imagine that the games 
and sports will not prosper or be properly conducted with- 
out the supervision of a Turnlehrer, or overseer ; and they 
give great exhortations to this man to sympathize with the 
boys and stimulate them. In England the main duty of 
such people is to keep out of the way and let the boys 
manage their own affairs. The results of the opposed sys- 
tems will strike any one who compares, on the one hand, 
the neat and well-regulated French boys of a boarding- 
school, walking two -and -two, with gloves on and toes 
turned out, along a road, followed by a master; on the 
other, the playgrounds of any good English school during 
recreation time. If the zealous and learned reformers who 
write books on the subject in modern Europe would take 
the trouble to come and see this for themselves, it might 
modify both their encomia on Greek training and their 
suggestions for their own countries. 



CHAPTER IV. 

SCHOOL DAYS THE MUSICAL SIDE THE SCHOOLMASTER. 

§ 24. We will approach this side of the question by 
quoting the famous description of Greek education in Pla- 
to's " Protagoras," * which will recall to the reader the gen- 
eral problem, so apt to be lost or obscured amid details. 
" Education and admonition commence in the very first 

1 P. 325 C. Cf. also "Axiochus," p. 3G6 E: birurav dk £(V ri^v 
tTCTa^Tiav cKpiKyrai [ro vi]Tnov] ttoWovq ttovovq SiavTXijaav, Tvaida- 
yioyoi Kai ypafifiaTicTTai Kai TraiSorpi(Sai rvpavvovvreg, k.t.X. 



GEEEK EDUCATION. 33 

years of childliood, ar.d last to the very end of life. Moth- 
er and nurse and father and tutor (Trat^aywyoc) are quar- 
relling about the improvement of the child as soon as ever 
he is able to understand them. He cannot say or do any- 
thing without their setting forth to him that this is just 
and that is unjust ; that this is honorable, that is dishonor- 
able ; this is holy, that is unholy ; do this, and abstain from 
that. And if he obeys, well and good ; if not, he is 
straightened by threats and blows, like a piece of Avarped 
wood. At a later stage they send him to teachers, and 
enjoin them to see to his manners even more than to his 
reading and music; and the teachers do as they are de- 
sired. And when the boy has learned his letters, and is 
beginning to understand what is written, as before he un- 
derstood only what was spoken, they put into his hands 
the works of great poets, which he reads at school; in 
these are contained many admonitions, and many tales and 
praises, and encomia of ancient famous men, which he is 
required to learn by heart, in order that he may imitate or 
emulate them, and desire to become like them. Then, 
again, the teachers of the lyre take similar care that their 
young disciple is steady and gets into no mischief; and 
when they have taught him the use of the lyre, they intro- 
duce him to the works of other excellent poets, who are 
the lyric poets ; and these they set to music, and make 
their harmonies and rhythms quite familiar to the children, 
in order that they may learn to be more gentle and har- 
monious and rhythmical, and so more fitted for speech and 
action ; for the life of man in every part has need of har- 
mony and rhythm. Then they send them to the master 
of gymnastics, in order that their bodies may better minis- 
ter to the virtuous mind, and that the weakness of their 



34 GREEK EDIJCA.TION. 

bodies may not force tlicm to play the coward in war or 
on any other occasion. This is what is done by those who 
hav^e the means, and those who have the means are the 
rich ; their children begin education soonest and leave off 
latest. When they have done with masters, the State, again, 
compels them to learn the laws, and live after the pattern 
which they furnish, and not after their own fancies ; and 
just as in learning to write, the writing-master first draws 
lines with a stylus for the use of the young beginner, and 
gives him the tablet, and makes him follow the lines, so 
the city draws the laws, which were the invention of good 
lawgivers which were of old time; these are given to the 
young man in order to guide him in his conduct, whether 
as ruler or ruled ; and he who transgresses them is to be 
corrected or called to account, which is a term used not 
only in your country, but in many others." 

This is the argument put by Plato into the mouth of 
Protagoras the sophist, to show that virtue is a thing which 
can be taught, and not a mere natural predisposition or a 
divine grace. The other locus classicus, which may be re- 
referred to in close connection with it, is the description of 
the traditional education given in Aristophanes' " Clouds." ^ 

1 961 sq. : 

\bS,(x> Toivvv rr^v a.p")(^aiav iraiduav, 6)Q disKeiro, 
OT syil) TCI SiKaia Xeyiop i'jvOovv Kai aujcppoavvrj v^vofiiaTO. 
TrpMTOV fxiv tSu Traidbg ^MVtjv ypv^avroQ jjLrjdsv aKovaai " 
elra ^a^iZav iv raiaiv o^oXq evrdicrios elg KiOapicrTov 
TOVQ KiojxrjraQ yufii'ovg ciBpoovQ, ks.1 Kpifivivdt] Karavicpoi. 
dr av TrpofiaOeTv q^cfi kSldaaKEV, toj [xrjpio fit) ^vvkxovTUQ, 
7} TlaXkada TrepasTroXiv Ssivav, rj TijX'&TTopov ri (Buafia, 
Ivreivajxevovc riijv apfioviav, rjv ol TrarepEg Trapkdioicav. 
el Sb tlq clvtCjv ^iOjXoKoxivaair j) Kafi'ihiitv riva Kaii7rr]v, 
oiag o\ vvv rag Kara, ^piivif ravrag rag dvaKo\oKd]ii7rTOvg, 



GEEEK EDUCATION. 35 

The strict discipline of boys who were not allowed to utter 
a whisper before their elders ; who were sent in troops eai-ly 
in the morning to school, in their single tunic, even in the 
deepest winter snow ; who were kept at work with the mu- 
sic-master studying old traditional hymns, and in attitudes 
strictly controlled as regards modesty and decency — all this 
is contrasted by the poet with what he considers the cor- 
ruption of the youth with florid and immoral music, their 
meretricious desire to exhibit their bodily and mental per- 
fections, their luxury and sloth, their abandonment of so- 
briety and diligence. 

There are peculiarities of Greek taste so openly alluded 
to in this passage that it will not bear literal translation 
into English, at least into a book for ordinary readers ; and 
therefore it need only be remarked, in criticism of it, that 
too much stress has been laid by theorists on Greek life, 
both on the picture of over-anxious morality in the older 
time, and on the alleged immorality of the poet's age. It 
is from such passages that German historians draw their 
very extravagant assertions of the rapid degeneracy of the 
Athenians under what they call the ochlocracy^ which fol- 

CLTreTpifSfTO TVTrrofxevog TroWdg <jjg rag Movaag cKpavi^iov. 

iv TraidoTpijSov de KaOi^ovrag rov [irjpbv idei TrpofiaXsaQai 

Tovg TToidag, oTrojg rolg 'i^ojOev [xrjdev Sei^eiav d7rr}veg • 

iLT ill) TvaXiv avOig civiaTdjitvov crvj-ixpijaai, Kal irpovouaQai 

t'lduXov Tolaiv IpaaTcnaiv Tijg ijj3ijg n-q KaTaXe'nreiv. 

rjXeixparo d' av rovficpaXov ovSslg iratg vTvivEpBsv tot up, wore 

Toig aidoioKTt Spocrog teal x^^vg ^crTrep jxriXotaLV tTrijvOa ' 

ov8 dv fiaXuKriv (pvpaadi-ievog Ti)v (pixjvrjv Tpug tov ipacTiljv 

avTog kavTov Trpoayojyevdjv Tolg ocpOaXfiolg if3ddi^ev, 

ovd' dv tXsaOat dtnrvovvT i'^fjv KiipaXaiov rfjg pacpavlcog, 

ovS' dvvrjOov Twv TvpiajivTipiov dpTrd^fiv ovSe akXivov, 

ovd' dxpofaysiv, ovde KixXi^eiv, ovd' 'icrx^i^v toj Trod' tvaXXd^. k.t.X, 



36 GEEEK EDUCATION. 

lowed upon the death of Pericles. It is very easy to find 
in many other ages and times similar assertions of the glory 
of the good old times, and the degeneracy of the satirist's 
own contemporaries. But there is generally no more truth 
in it than in the assertion of Homer that his heroes took 
up and threw easily great rocks which two, or five, or ten 
men, such as they now are, could not lift. The same sort 
of thing was said in poetry of the mediaeval knights in 
comparison with modern Europe. One would imagine 
them of greater size and might than we are, and yet their 
suits of armor are seldom large enough for a man six feet 
high. The picture of Aristophanes is doubtless a delib- 
erate exaggeration, and would have been readily acknowl- 
edged as such by the poet himself. But it, of course, gives 
us the extremes possible in real life, as he knew it, and is 
therefore of use in forming our ideas on the question, if we 
use common sense and caution. 

§ 25. With the exception of this feature, that Greek 
parents showed a greater apprehension for the morals of 
their boys, and guarded them as we should guard the mor- 
als of girls, it will be seen that the principles of education 
are permanent, and applicable in all ages under similar cir- 
cumstances. 

But what the ancients called music in the wider sense 
must be held to include a knowledge and recitation of 
good poetry, as well as proper training in that figured 
dancing which was the most usual service of the gods. 
Indeed, a good musical education in Greece, much in con- 
trast to ours, included every graceful sesthetical and intel- 
lectual accomplishment. This wide use of the term, how- 
ever, though co-ordinate with the ordinary sense of playing 
instruments and singing, causes little confusion. A dis- 



GEEEK EDUCATION. 37 

tinction between " music and singing," such as we often see 
it (not satirically) set forth in the advertisements of our 
professional teachers, was not admitted. 

§ 26. I think w^e may be justified in asserting that the 
study of the epic poets, especially of the " Iliad " and " Odys- 
sey," was the earliest intellectual exercise of schoolboys, and, 
in the case of fairly educated parents, even anticipated the 
learning of letters. For the latter is never spoken of as 
part of a mother's or of home education. Reading was 
not so universal or so necessary as it now is ; and as it was 
in earlier days an accomplishment only gradually becoming 
an essential, its acquisition seems always to have been in- 
trusted to a professional master, the ypaju/iartorjyc, or gram- 
marian in the earlier use of the word. Of course, careful 
parents, of the model above set forth by Protagoras, must 
have inculcated early lessons from poetry before that age. 
We may assume that books of Homer were read or recited 
to growing boys, and that they were encouraged or required 
to learn them oS by heart. 

This is quite certain to all who estimate justly the 
enormous influence ascribed to Homer, and the principles 
assumed by the Greeks to have underlain his work. He 
was universally considered to be a moral teacher, whose 
characters were drawn with a moral intent, and for the pur- 
pose of example or avoidance. In Plato's " Ion " we distinct- 
ly find something supernatural, some distinct inspiration by 
the muse, asserted of Homer ; and this inspiration was even 
passed on, like some magnetic force, from bard to bard. 
These ancient poets were even supposed to have uttered 
words deeper and holier than they themselves knew, being 
driven by some divine oestrus to compose what they could 
not have said in their natural state. Accordingly, the 



38 GREEK EDUCATION. 

"Iliad" and " Odyssey" were supposed to contain all that 
was useful, not only for godliness, but for life. All tlie arts 
and sciences were to be derived (by interpretation) from 
these sacred texts. 

Hence, when it occurs to a modern reader that the main 
superiority of our education over the Greek is the early 
training in the Scriptures — a training, alas ! decaying in 
earnestness 'every day — an old Athenian or Milesian or 
Cean would deny the fact, and say that they, too, had an 
inspired volume, written for their learning, in which all the 
moral virtues and all the necessaries of faith were con- 
tained. The charge of objectionable passages in the old 
epic would doubtless be retorted by a similar charge 
against the old Semitic books. 

§ 27. It is well-nigh impossible that in the higher fami- 
lies throuo-hout Greece this moral trainino' should not have 
begun at home ; and there must have been many Greek 
mothers able and anxious to help, though history is silent 
about them, and does not even single out individual cases, 
like the Roman Cornelia, where mothers influenced the 
moral and intellectual training of their children.^ Certain 
it is that here and there we find evidences of a strong feel- 
ing of respect to the house-mother which contrast curiously 
with the usual silence about women. In the " Clouds," the 
acme of villany in the young scapegrace who has turned 
sophist under Socrates' hands is to threaten violence to his 
mother.^ Here it is that Strepsiades exclaims in real horror 
at the result of such teaching. We also find both Plato 
and (perhaps in imitation of him) Cicero laying stress upon 
the purity of speech preserved in the conversation of culti- 

^ Two or three stories of Spartan mothers in Plutarch form tardj' 
and unimportant exceptions. ^ v. 1444 sq. 



GREEK EDUCATION. 39 

vated women, whose conservative life and tastes rejected 
slang and novelty, and thus preserved the language pure 
and undefiled. The very opposite complaint is made con- 
cerning the paedagogues, whose often barbarous origin and 
rude manners were of damage to the youth. 

§ 28. On the question of punishments, both at home 
and at school, we do not find the Greeks very different 
from ourselves. There are not in Greek literature any such 
eloquent protests against corporal punishment as we find in 
Seneca and Quintilian. They all acknowledge the use and 
justice of it, and only caution against applying servile pun- 
ishments to free boys. Indeed, in many later writers, such 
as Lucian, the severities of schoolmasters are noted ; and we 
have among the Pompeian pictures a scene of a master 
flogging a boy, who is hoisted on the shoulders of another, 
with a third holding him up by the heels. These evidences, 
together with those of the later Romans, on the sounds of 
woe common in schools, must not be overestimated. They 
are probably exceptional cases made prominent for satirical 
purposes, and not implying any peculiar savagery in Greek 
above modern masters. 

Most certainly the Greek schoolmaster was not harsher 
than the lower-class masters in many primary schools, as, 
for example,' tlic Irish hedge schoolmasters described in 
Carleton's "Tales of the Irish Peasantry." 

Unfortunately, the Greek schoolmaster, at least of ele- 
mentary schools, was not generally in high repute, was evi- 
dently not highly paid, and his calling was not such as to 
give him either dignity or self-respect. He was accused of 
pedantry if he was really learned, and of bad temper if he 
was zealous and impatient at idleness. 

^ Cf. the amusing notes in Cicero's letters on a private tutor he got 

4 



40 GEEEK EDUCATION. 

Liician, in a jocose description of tlie netlier world, de- 
scribes kings and satraps as beggars or " primary " scliool- 
masters, and was only carrying out into fiction the pro- 
verbial downfall of the tyrant Dionysius of Syracuse, who 
spent his old-age teaching children at Corinth. An un- 
known comic writer is quoted as saying, " The man is either 
dead or teaching the alphabet." We hear of philosophers 
accusing each other — very absurdly — of having once fol- 
lowed this profession ; and every scholar will remember the 
famous passage in Demosthenes' " De Corona : " " But you, 
worthy man, who despise others compared with yourself, 
now compare with mine your own lot, which consigned 
you to grow up from boyhood in the greatest need, when 
you helped your father to attend in the school, preparing 
the ink, cleaning the benches, sweeping out the schoolroom, 
and so taking the rank of a slave, and not of a free boy." 
We even hear of Horace's master, Orbilius, writing a la- 
mentable autobiography on account of his miseries, under 
the title of the man acquainted ivith grief (TrepiaXyng). 

§ 29. The general question of the payment of teachers 
will be better discussed when we come to the Sophists' 
training of riper youth. Indeed, on the whole value of the 
various attacks on the teaching order in Greece, Grasberger 
concludes his elaborate summary of the above and many 
other facts with the sensible remark: "As regards the 

for his son and nephew, vi. 1, 9: "I am in love with Dionysius. 
The boys say he flies into furious passions. But no man could be 
more learned or conscientious (sanctior) or more devoted to you and 
me." Presently Cicero's tone alters, viii. 4: "Dionysius gave me 
impudence: you would say I had procured another Dicaiarchus or 
Aristoxenus, and not a man that talks us all down, and is no good 
for teaching. But he has a good memory." 
1 ii. p. 189. 



GEEEK EDUCATION. 4:1 

unpleasant and objectionable features, wbicb men seem to 
record witli special preference, the true state of the case 
may be the same as with the many scandals which are re- 
ported from the life of the mediaeval universities in Europe. 
Evil did not predominate ; but the chronicler, instead of 
putting forward the modest virtues of diligence and of sci- 
entific earnestness, preferred to note both the faults of the 
teachers and the gross excesses of the students." 

We may be sure that in the Greek primary schools, 
though we hear of one assistant sometimes, the master was 
required to teach all the subjects. This was so not long 
ago in England, and still more in Ireland, where the hedge 
schoolmasters, but lately supplanted by the national school 
system (not without considerable loss), were required, and 
were able, to teach classics, mathematics, and the old-fash- 
ioned English. It is, indeed, clearly presupposed in all 
the many bequests of pious benefactors, who leave forty or 
sixty pounds per annum for the payment of a single master 
to keep a school in some remote part of the country. And 
at Athens, as in the days of these bequests, there was no 
official or state test of a master's qualifications. Each man 
set up on his private account ; it depended on the reputa- 
tion he made whether his school was well attended. The 
worthy pedant in Goldsmith's " Deserted Village " gives us 
a fair specimen of the better class of such men. 



42 GEEEK EDUCATION. 

CHAPTER y. 

THE MUSICAL SIDE — ^^SCHOOLS AND THEIR APPOINTMENTS. 

§ 30. The school was generally distinguislied by the 
term dLdaaKaXelov ^ from the palaestra. We know that ev- 
ery Greek town possessed one or more, and in early times 
Herodotus^ mentions one existing at Chios as early as 500 
B.C., of which the roof fell in and killed one hundred and 
nineteen out of one hundred and twenty children at work 
within it at the time. Pausanias tells of another at As- 
typalsea, into which a madman rushed and pulled down 
the supporting pillar, so that sixty boys were buried under 
the ruins. The sad affair of Mycalessus is told by Thucyd- 
ides, and extorts from him a most ungrammatical grimace 
of pity, when Thracian mercenaries murdered all the chil- 
dren assembled in school. These cases show how it was 
evidently regarded as an essential in every town. So the 
Troezenians, when they received the fugitive Athenians 
during the invasion of Xerxes, took care, even in that 
great and sudden crisis, to provide for the teaching of the 
Attic children.^ Of course, in early days and in poor 
towns, the place of teaching was not well appointed ; nay, 
even in many places teaching in the open air prevailed. 

1 AidaaKoKiov is the thing learned. ' vi. 27. 

^ The Greek form of our word school, though in common use, 
meant leisure, and only passed through its application to the leisurely 
discussions of philosophers into its new and opposite sense. There is 
some difficulty about the word TraidayujyHoVy which some have im- 
agined to be a waiting-room for the psedagogue slaves — absurdly 
enough. It is probably a mere synonym for the schoolroom. 



GREEK EDUOATIOK. 43 

The oldest legends speak of Cheiron teaching in his grotto 
on Pelion ; in the latest Greek xa/-tai^t3ao-m\oc {teacher on 
the ground) is a word for a low class of teacher. This 
was, again, like the old hedge schools of Ireland, and, no 
doubt, of Scotland too. They also took advantage, espe- 
cially in hot weather, of colonnades, or sliady corners 
among public buildings; as at Winchester the summer 
term was called cloister-time, from a similar practice, even 
in that wealthy foundation, of instructing in the cloisters. 

On the other hand, properly appointed schools in re- 
spectable towns were furnished with some taste, and ac- 
cording to traditional notions. As in gymnasia and pa- 
Isestras, there was a shrine of the Muses or of Hermes, and 
the head of the institution was regarded as the priest of 
this shrine, at whicb offerings were made, so in the schools 
also there were statues of tutelary gods set up, and busts 
of heroes and other eminent men, by way of ornament as 
well as reminder to the boys. 

We hear that the master sat on a high seat, from which 
he taught ; the scholars often sat on the ground, as they 
still do in many countries, or else they stood or occupied 
benches round him. The pictures and descriptions extant 
do not point to the schools being so crowded, as appears 
from the accidents above cited; but this is probably a 
mere chance, or an omission for the artist's convenience. 
For though the laws quoted in ^schines' speech forbid 
any one save the master and boys to be present, we know 
that in later days this was not strictly observed, and in 
Theophrastus's " Characters," the Chatterbox, among other 
mistakes in tact, is represented going into the schools and 
interrupting lessons with his idle talk. We may be sure 
that there were no tables or desks, such furniture being un- 



44: GEEEK EDUCATION. 

usual in Greek houses ; it was the universal custom, while 
reading or writing, to hold the book or roll on the knee — to 
us an inconvenient thing to do, but still common in the East. 

There are some interesting sentences, given for exercise 
in Greek and Latin, in the little-known " Interpretamenta " 
of Dositheus, now edited and explained by German scholars. 
The entry of the boy is thus described, in parallel Greek 
and Latin : " First I salute the master, who returns my sa- 
lute: good -morning, master ; good -morning, school -fel- 
lows. Give me my place, my seat, my stool. Sit closer. 
Move up that way. This is my place, I took it first." 
This mixture of politeness and wrangling is amusing, and, 
no doubt, to be found in all ages. It seems that the seats 
were movable. A scholium on ^schines tells us that 
there was a supply of water close at hand, lest the boys 
might suffer from thirst. 

The extant pictures show that along the walls were 
hung up various vessels of which the use is not always 
plain to us. But we can clearly distinguish the necessary 
implements for the teaching of reading and writing, boxes 
for book-rolls, writing-boards, reckoning-boards with par- 
allel grooves, and pebbles fixed in them, geometrical figures, 
flute-cases, and lyres. There is also late authority to show 
that there were notice-boards on which regulations were 
posted. We hear from Lucian of a notice over a sophist's 
door, "No philosophy to-day." The notice-board was 
called " the white board," being covered with chalk. AVe 
are not told how this was written on ; but if the ground 
was black, then mere writing with the finger across the 
chalked surface would produce distinct characters. 

§ 31. What is far more interesting is the remnant now 
discovered of the pictorial teaching of children, by hanging 



GREEK EDrCATIOK. 45 

np in the schoolroom ilkistrations of the Trojan and other 
legends. By the researches of Bottiger and 0. Jahn/ it 
appears that we still have the fragments of such a table in 
the tabula Iliaca of Theodorus, preserved at the Capitoline 
Mnseiim in Rome. These were large pictures, in a series, 
witli names or words of explanation attached to them. 
Thus we have one picture (from " Iliad " A) of Chryses 
praying Agamemnon to restore his daughter, beside him 
a wagon loaded with ransom, and under each figure, and 
under the wagon respectively, Agamemnon, Chryses, the 
ransom. Other extant pictures illustrate the third and 
twenty-fourth books of the " Iliad." The " Odyssey " was 
similarly treated, so that there seems to have been a tradi- 
tional and widely circulated pictorial compendium of the 
Homeric poems used, at all events, in later Greek and in 
Roman schools. There are also chronological and histor- 
ical fragments of the same kind still extant, so that it is 
more than probable that even in classical days Greek boys 
were not without the benefit of illustrated school-books, or 
at least school-sheets, as the elegiac distich on the back of 
one of them suggests.^ The use of these pictures on the 
walls explains the constant appearance of a 4ong wand in 
the master's hand, which is more characteristic of him than 
the rod of punishment, though this, too, was not missing. 



THE SUBJECTS AND METHOD OF EDUCATION THE THREE r's. 

§ 32. The usual subdivision of education was into three 
parts : letters (ypa/x^mra), including reading, writing, count- 

^ Grasberger, ii. 224. 

" [w 0t'Xe Trat] OeioSwptjov fidOe Ta%iv 'Ofifjpov 

'6<ppa datig 7rdar]Q fierpov txV^ co^iag. 



46 GEEEK EDUCATION, 

ing, and learning of the poets ; music in the stricter sense, 
including singing and playing on the lyre ; and lastly gym- 
nastic, which included dancing. These were under the 
special direction of three classes of masters, the gramma- 
tists (to be distinguished from ypaiJ/fkarLKog, used in a higher 
sense), the citharistes, and the pcedotj^ibes. It is said that 
at Sparta the education in reading and writing was not 
thought necessary, and there have been long discussions 
among the learned whether the ordinary Spartan in clas- 
sical days was able to read. We find that Aristotle adds a 
fourth subject to the three above named — drawing, which 
he thinks requisite, like music, to enable the educated man 
to judge rightly of works of art. But there is no evidence 
of a wide diffusion of drawing or painting among the 
Greeks, as among us ; and the same may be said of swim- 
ming on the gymnastic side, though the oft-quoted proverb, 
fjiride veiv firjhe ypcififxara — he can neither swim nor read — 
has led the learned to assert a general knowledge of swim- 
mins;, at least at Athens. 

Later on, under the learned influences of Alexandria and 
the paid professoriate of Roman days, subjects multiplied 
with the dediine of mental vigor and spontaneity of the 
age, and children began to be pestered, as they now are, 
with a quantity of subjects, all thought necessary to a 
proper education, and accordingly all imperfectly acquired. 
This was called the encyclical education,, which is preserved 
in our encyclopaedia of knowledge. It included (1) gram- 
mar, (2) rhetoric, (3) dialectic, (4) arithmetic, (5) music, (6) 
geometry, (7) astronomy, and these were divided into the 
earlier Trivium and the later Quadrivium. But fortu- 
nately this debasement of classical education is far beyond 
our present scope. 



GEEEK EDUCATION". 47 

§ 33. The boys started very early for school, attended 
by their psedagogue, and appear to have returned for late 
breakfast. We may conclude from the Roman custom, 
though we have no positive evidence, that the afternoons 
were devoted to recreation or the lighter gymnastic exer- 
cises. The later theorists speak much of pauses and of 
variation in study ; but though we know there were a good 
many isolated holidays, -we hear of no period of rest for 
both masters and boys, such as there must have been in the 
Eoman dog-days. There is something humane and affect- 
ing in the dying bequest of Anaxagoras, who gave his na- 
tive city, Clazomense, a property on the condition that the 
anniversary of his death should be kept as a general school 
holiday. There were also special days of school feasts, 
such as the Hermcea and Museia, so elegantly described at 
the opening of Plato's " Lysis." 

§ 34. From the accounts we have of the teaching of the 
alphabet, as implied in Plato's " Cratylus," and described 
by Dionysius (the rhetor) in illustrating Demosthenes' elo- 
quence, it was not carried on in an analytical, but a syn- 
thetical, way. Children were not taught words first and 
then to analyze them, but started with individual letters, , 
then learned their simplest combinations, and so on. Nor 
is this method ever likely to be supplanted by the other, at 
least in the case of stupid children. But we do hear of one 
curious attempt to make the alphabet an agreeable study in 
the so-ca\]ed fframinatical tragedy/ of Callias, about 400 b.c. 
This was the time when (in the archonship of Eucleides) 
the newer Ionic alphabet of twenty-four letters was intro- 
duced, and apparently ordered to be used in schools. The 
work of Callias was, accordingly, a poetical kind of A B C 
book, in which the single letters in turn spoke the prologue. 



«t 



48 GEEEK EDUCATION. 

The choral parts seem to have been refrains working out 
the simpler combinations of vowels with each consonant. 
The seven vowels were also introduced before the school- 
master as female characters. But more we do not know, 
and it is probable that the book was only called tragedy 
from its external form, not from any plot.^ The use of 
mnemonic verses to help children was, no doubt, as old as 
education ; but we should have been glad to know the di- 
visions of letters followed by Callias ; for up to the times 
of the Sophists there was no proper analysis of the alpha- 
bet, and it is to them that we owe such studies as Plato's 
" Cratylus," which, though sound as to the alphabet, is won- 
derfully childish as to etymology. Still, the popular knowl- 
edge of 400 B.C. must have been a long way behind the 
" Cratylus." 

From the acquisition of letters, the child passed to the 
study of syllables, and we find syllabizing used generally 
by the Greeks for elementary instruction in reading. But 
while the Greek child was not afflicted, like English chil- 
dren, with the absurd conundrums of a perfectly irrational 
spelling; while he had a fair guarantee that the individual 
letters reproduced the sound of the whole word, there were 
other difficulties in his way. He had not, indeed, to bur- 
den his memory with the sounds to be attached to symbols 
like though and tough, plague and ague, but he mmt, on 
the other hand, study with peculiar care the separation of 
^Yords — interpunction — and also punctuation and accent. 
Accent, indeed, and the subtle use of the numerous par- 
ticles, were given, and could only be given, by familiarity 
with Greek as a mother tongue. As Aristotle remarks, 

1 All our evidence, with every possible surmise about it, may be 
found in Welcker's "Kleine Schriften," vol. i. p. 371 sq. 



GEEEK EDUCATION. 49 

one could always know a foreigner, however well lie spoke 
Greek, by the use of the particles. I heard Ernest Renan 
make the very same remark about foreigners' French a few 
years ago. But in classical days, accents were not even 
written, and words were not separated, neither were clauses 
distinguished by stops. Hence the difficulties of reading 
were considerably increased, as any one may prove for him- 
self by taking up a mediaeval Greek MS. There, indeed, 
the accents are a guide, but even with them the separation 
of words is a difficulty, and has led to endless mistakes in 
our printed texts. We know, too, that the Greeks were 
particular about melodious intonation and rhythmical bal- 
ance of clauses even in prose : all this gave the grammatist 
ample scope for patience. There is even a special teacher 
— (piavacTKOQ — mentioned in early days as regulating and 
training the singing voice of children. Indeed, we are sur- 
prised at the general assumption among their educators 
that every one had both natural voice and ear.^ 

Thus reading aloud and recitations from the great poets 
attained a double object: the schoolboy was taught to- 
enounce accurately and read rhythmically; he was made 
familiar at the same time with the choicest extracts of the 
best masters in the older literature. I have already spoken 
of Homer; but the lyric poets, like Tyrtseus, and the 
gnomic, like Theognis, were also largely used at school. 
Indeed, it is not a little remarkable how many of these old 
poets were themselves called schoolmasters. This school 

^ This assumption may perhaps hardly seem surprising when it 
still prevails among the English public as regards girls. Accord- 
ingly, a vast amount of time and brain power is wasted in the en- 
deavor to make them play and sing, though nature has peremptorily 
precluded it in most cases. 



50 GREEK EDrCATION. 

use gave rise to chrestomatKies, or selections of suitable 
passages ; and there are many critics wlio think that our 
present texts of Theognis represent such a selection. The 
" Golden Yerses " of Pythagoras, the many collections of 
proverbs, or vTrodiiKai, point to the same practice. "Written 
books were still scarce, libraries very exceptional, and thus 
the boy's education was far more prosecuted by dictation 
and by conversation than nowadays. Without doubt this 
made them less learned, but more intelligent and ready, 
than we are ; and there are even in the days of Hellenic 
decay complaints of the increase of books, of the lust after 
much reading and various lore.^ We are told that in 
Sparta and Crete all children learned hymns to the gods, 
and metrical statements of the laws, to be sung to fixed 
melodies ; and this (if a fact) has justly been called a po- 
litical as well as religious catechism. 

§ 35. It was very late in the history of Hellenism that 
any mention of the learning of foreign languages meets us. 
Even in the wide studies pursued at Alexandria, no sys- 
tematic course in languages is ever mentioned ; and people 
still had recourse in international business to those who 
happened to be born of mixed marriages, or by some other 
accident had been compelled to acquire a second tongue. 
There is, indeed, much curious evidence that the Greeks, 
being really bad linguists, found great difficulty in acquir- 
ing the Latin tongue, even when it became the language 
of the rulers of the world.^ Strabo^ notes that whenever 

^ The objections of the Eleatics and Platonists to the moral side 
of Homer and the other epic poets will be discussed in connection 
with the philosophic attempts at reform in higher education. 

2 Plutarch (" Life of Demosth.," 2) laments his inability to master 
Latin, and the difficulties it presents when not acquired very eai%. 

2 iii. 4, 19. ^ 



GREEK EDUCATION. 61 

historical treatises were composed in foreign languages, 
they were inaccessible to the Greeks, while the Romans 
did nothing but copy partially and imperfectly what the 
Greeks had said — a remark which might now be sarcasti- 
cally applied to the relations of German and English phi- 
lology. This Greek inability to learn, or contempt of, for- 
eign languages reminds us of the French of to-day, whose 
language, until lately, held the place in Europe which 
Greek held in the Roman Empire, when every respectable 
person knew Greek, and when the Senate were able to 
receive and treat with foreign ambassadors speaking in 
Greek.^ We have above noted the dana:er actuallv threat- 
ening that children might learn Greek so early and exclu- 
sively as to speak their native tongue with a foreign accent 
— a state of things which the Romans would have resented 
strongly in their rulers — in that respect widely different 
from the English people of to-day. Thus the Romans at- 
tained, what the Greeks missed, the opportunity of learn- 
ing grammar through the forms of a foreign language.^ 

§ 36. When the children came to writing, we must not 
imagine them using ink and paper, which was far too ex- 
pensive. Instead of our slate, they used tablets covered 
with wax, on which the pointed stylus drew a sharp line, 
which could be smoothed out again with the flat reverse 
end. There were double lines drawn on the tablets, and 

^ Up to the mission of Carneades and his fellows (155 b.c.) an 
interpreter had been necessary. 

^ This seems to me a very important point, and I do not know 
liow our training of boys in the strict and clear Latin grammar can 
ever be supplied adequately by any other means, though I have one 
great and recognized authority — Mr. Thring — against me, who 
thinks that boys should learn the logic of grammar through English 
analysis. 



52 GREEK EDUCATION. 

the master wrote words for tlie boys to copy. We are 
told that he at times held the hands of beginners in form- 
ing letters. Quintilian suggests that the letters should be 
cut deep in a wooden tablet, so that the child could follow 
them without having his hand held ; and it was in this 
way that the Ostrogoth Theodoric managed to sign his 
name, by having a metal plate pierced with it, which he 
then laid on the paper, and stencilled out the letters. 
There are on the walls of Pompeii many scribblings of 
boys, evidently repeating their school exercises ; and in 
Egypt was found a tomb with a set of wax tablets, all 
containino' the same verses of Menander : but one of them 
a model, the rest copies varying in excellence; and under 
some of them the approving judgment diligent {(piXo7r6vu)g). 
This curious set of relics, in the possession of Dr. Abbott, 
of New York, is apparently the school furniture of a mas- 
ter buried with him. 

§ 37. There is no reason to think that the average 
Greek attained anything like the fluency in writing which 
we now consider necessary. Plato ^ says it is only neces- 
sary so far as to be able to write or read ; to write fast or 
elegantly must not be attempted within the range of or- 
dinary education, except in rare cases and with peculiar 
natural gifts. Indeed, as slaves did all the copying work, 
and as published books were always in their handwriting, 
there may have been the same sort of prejudice against a 
very good, clear hand which many people now feel against 
an office hand. At Athens there was a special officer, 
ypafifjiarEvQ, to write out, or direct the writing-out of, pub- 
lic documents ; there was also a viroypa^evc^ a secretary to 
take minutes {v7roypd(l)Ea6aL) at public meetings. Besides 
» "Laws," 810— if the "Laws" be, indeed, Plato's. 



GREEK EDUCATION. 63 

the formal writing in separate capital letters, which, we 
have on so many inscriptions, and which was probably the 
hand taught to children, there was a cursive hand, which we 
see in the Greek papyri of the second century b.c. found 
in Egypt. In later MSS. we even find a regular shorthand, 
exceedingly difficult to decipher.^ The lines were drawn, 
especially on wax, with a little coin-shaped piece of lead 
{[x6Xv(3dog), and the drawing of lines appears to be called 
irapaypcKpsLv. Instead of the sharp metal or bone stylus, 
a reed (/caXa/ioc), like our pens, was used on papyrus or 
parchment with ink. Quintilian prefers the wax and sty- 
lus, because the constant dipping in the ink distracts and 
checks thinking — a curious objection, and worth quoting 
to show the difference between his age and ours. But 
when the new stylograph has been used for some time, we 
will, no doubt, find men asserting this of the old-fashioned 
pen and ink. 

§ 38. The school commentary,- or explanation of the 
poems or other literature thus written out, was probably 
quite elementary. Grammar only began to be understood 
by the Sophists, and we have specimens of exercises on the 
use of the article, and on the question of genders, in a very 
comic dialogue in Aristophanes' "Clouds," where the pupil 
of the new school ridicules the ignorance of old Strepsiades. 
It is likely Protagoras's work on the correct use of language 
{opdoETreia) gave a great stimulus to this branch of edu- v 
cation. But we cannot argue that these studies of the 
mother tongue which make our use of it more conscious 
than before, had any better effect on prose -writing or on 
conversation than the very parallel studies of English which 
have of late years invaded or infested all our schools. Good- 
^ Cf. Wattenbach's specimens in his plates of Greek MSS. 



64 GEEEK EDUCATION. 

breeding and natural refinement seem the natural (and are 
probably the only) safeguards of a mother tongue in its 
ordinary use, and there is even great danger that a con- 
scious analysis of idioms may banish from the writing of a 
language many valuable and characteristic turns which are 
based upon a more subtle propriety than that of school 
logic. Fortunately, local dialects have a great power of 
resistance. The Warwick or the Gal way peasant will speak 
his own accents, and even use his idioms, in spite of all 
compulsory teaching of English grammar in the schools; 
but the reducing of all written English to one standard 
(both in spelling and in idiom) is like the reducing of all 
written Greek to the common dialect — a very great loss 
and damage.^ 

§ 39. We pass to the teaching of elementary science. 
Geometry was still an advanced study, and, though in high 
esteem among the Greeks as one of the most elegant and 
perfect, seems not to have been taught in schools. Arith- 
metic was regarded either as the abstract science of num- 
bers {apidnrjrii^r]), and as such one of the most difficult of 
sciences, or as the art of reckoning (XoyiariK)]) to be em- 
ployed in the ordinary affairs of life. Mercantile Greeks, 

^ If we had phonetic spelling, our dialects would be preserved, as 
the various Greek dialects were, or as the Italian now are, and thus 
the history of our language in the present day might become possible 
to ourselves and our descendants. As it is, we are concealing from 
all inquiry this most interesting subject — I mean the varying pro- 
nunciation — by our absurd artificial spelling, and we are banishing 
local idioms by stamping them with the mark of vulgarity. This 
latter is the natural and right consequence of having classical models. 
But had we possessed the older dialects in phonetic writing, our 
standard would have been widened, like that of the Greeks, to in- 
clude important provincial varieties. 



GREEK EDUCATION". 55 

like the Athenians and lonians generally, among whom 
banking was well developed, must have early found this a 
necessity ; but even in Greek art, architectural perfection 
was attained by a very subtle and evidently conscious ap- 
plication of arithmetical proportions. This was first shown 
in the accurate measurements of the Parthenon by Penrose, 
and was, no doubt, expounded in the treatise written on this 
building by its architect, Ictinus. In the great temple of 
Zeus at Olympia, the use of multiples of 7 and 5 has been 
shown so curiously applied by an American scholar that 
he suspects the application of Pythagorean symbolism by 
the architect Libon. But of course this was apidfirjriKn in 
the strict sense, and is only here mentioned to show how 
the Greeks must have been led to appreciate the value of 
the science of numbers. Ordinary schoolboys were taught 
to add, subtract, multiply, and divide, as they now are, but 
without the advantage of our admirable system of nota- 
tion. 

Starting from the natural suggestion of the fingers — a 
suggestion preserved all through later history by such words 
as TreixTra^eadai (literally, to count hy fives, but used of 
counting generally) — the Greeks^ represented numbers by 
straight strokes, but soon replaced Mill either by a rude 
picture of a hand,V (as we find in Roman numbers), and 
made two such symbols joined together to represent 10 
(X), or else the higher numbers were marked by the first 
letter of their name — viz., M and C, in Latin mille and cen- 
tum. So in Greek, X (x'Xioi), M {/uvpioi), etc. The smaller 
numbers were represented in ordinary counting by the 
fingers of the hand, not merely as dibits (a suggestive 
word, in itself a survival of the process), but, according as 

they were bent or placed, fingers represented multiples of 

5 



56 



GEEEK EDUCATION". 



5, and so were sufficient for ordinary sums. Aristophanes 
even contrasts ^ this sort of reckoning, as clearer and more 
intelligible, with reckoning on the abacus, or arithmetical 
board, which has still survived in our ball -frames. We 
are told that the fingers were sufficient to express all fig- 
ures up to thousands, which is indeed strange to us ; but 
both the finger signs and the abacus failed in the great in- 
vention we have gained from Arabic numerals, the supply- 
ing of the symbol o. The abacus used in Greek schools 
appears to have had several straight furrows in which peb- 
bles or plugs were set, and at the left side there was a 
special division where each unit meant 5. Thus, 648 
(DCXXXXVIII) was represented in the following way : 







o 


o 




o o o o 


o 


o o o 







M 

C 

X 



This abacus was ascribed to Pythagoras, but was in all 
probability older, and derived from Egypt, where element- 
ary science was well and widely taught from very early 
times. When initial letters were used for numbers, as IT for 
TTEi/rs, and A for ^eVa, combinations such as IM meant 50. 
Last of all, we find in our MSS. a system of using the let- 
ters of the alphabet for numbers, preserving <r {eTriffrjjior) for 
6, and thus reaching 10 with t, proceeding by tens through 
K (20), X (30), etc., to p (lOO), a (200), and for 900 using 
^"^^ This notation must not be confused with the marking 



I li 



Wasps," 656 sq. 



GREEK EDUCATION. 57 

of the twenty-four books of the Homeric epics by the sim- 
ple letters of the alphabet. 

Further details as to the technical terms for arithmetical 
operations, and the amount to be attributed to a nation 
using so clumsy a notation, must be sought in professed 
hand-books of antiquity.^ 

As regards geometry, all we can say is that in the days 
of Plato and Aristotle both these philosophers recognize 
not only its extraordinary value as a mental training, but 
also the fact that it can be taught to young boys as yet 
unfit for political and metaphysical studies. 

§ 40. Having thus disposed of the severer side of school 
education, we will turn to the artistic side, one very impor- 
tant to the Greeks, and suggestive to us of many instructive 
problems. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE SUBJECTS AND METHOD OF EDUCATION DRAWING 

AND MUSIC. 

§ 41. It is likely that most writers on Greek education 
have exaggerated the importance and diffusion of drawing 
as an ordinary school subject. Even in Aristotle's day it 
was only recognized by some people, probably theorists ;' 

* These are the ordinary terms : adding = avvnQkvai, TrpoanQ'svai ; 
subtracting = acpaipuv, vTre^atptlv, Latin deducere; multiplying = 
TToXKaTrKaaid^uv, and the factors irKivpa, a geometrical conception, 
as in the second book of Euclid ; dividing = fiepi^tiv : no general 
word for quotient is found. 

^ tan Sk TtTTapa ax^Cuv, d Trai^evuv eiu)6a<n, ypafjLfxaTa Kal yvfi- 
vaarudjv Kai fjiovaiKfjv, Kal Hraprov tvioLypa^iKt)v. — Po/,, viii. p. 259. 



58 GREEK EDUCATION. 

and Pliny tells us that it Vv^as Pamphilus, Apelles' master, 
who first had it introduced at Sicyon, from which it spread 
over all Greece. These combined notices point to its not 
being general before the days of Alexander. But the 
theorists recognized its use and importance earlier, first and 
most obviously for critical purposes, that men might better 
judge and appreciate works of art ; secondly, for that ses- 
thetical effect which is so forgotten by us, the unconscious 
moulding of the mind to beauty by the close and accurate 
study of beautiful forms. 

The usual word ^u)ypa(})ta for painting, and ^wypa<^oe 
for drawing-master, suggests to us that Jigure-drawing was 
the early and the principal branch of the art known and 
taught. From the earliest times rude figures had been 
scratched and colored on vases, and the number of vase- 
painters in historical Greece must have been so consider- 
able as to disseminate some general feeling for the art, 
though we hear of no amateur vase-painting, such as is in 
fashion among ladies of our own day. On the other hand, 
landscape-painting was of late growth and very imperfect 
development. The prominence of sculpture, even poly- 
chromatic sculpture, made its absence less felt Owing to 
the old Greek habit of personifying nature, and expressing 
every mountain and river by its tutelary gods, we find in 
the great pediment sculptures of the best epoch that curi- 
ous indication of the landscape by its tutelary gods — look- 
ing on calmly and unconsciously at the action of the prin- 
cipal figures — which is perhaps the most peculiar charac- 
teristic of all Greek art. Thus the local rivers, the Alpheus 
and Cladeus, are represented lying at the ends of the great 
eastern pediment of the temple at Olympia, witnessing the 
combat of Pelops and (Enomaus with no more expression 



OREEK EDUCATION. 59 

of feeling than the landscape which they represent would 
manifest. 

The earliest essays at landscape proper were, moreover, 
not rocks and trees, or that wild country which the Greeks 
never loved, but buildings and artificial grounds, with reg- 
ular lines and definite design. The first attempt was made 
to satisfy the requirements of the theatre, and the fact that 
scene-painting and shade-painting (or perspective) were used 
as synonymous terms shows the truth of the report that 
Apollodorus (ch\ 400 b.c.) first discovered the art of repre- 
senting the straight lines of a building in depth, by a de- 
parture from that orthography in geometrical drawing 
which had hitherto been practised. 

If we may judge from the many sketches of this sort of 
suburban landscape which are preserved on Pompeian walls, 
the proper knowledge of perspective was not even in later 
times diffused among ordinary artists, whose figure-painting 
on these walls is in every respect vastly superior. On the 
other hand, the figure-painting even on vases of the best 
epoch is so conventional that we cannot believe Greek boys 
were taught to draw figures with a proper knowledge of 
living or round models, and must assume the drawing- 
lessons to have been chiefly in geometrical designs. 

According to ^lian, there were maps of the Greek world 
to be had at Athens, and therefore presumably in schools, 
when Alcibiades was a young man ; but this isolated notice, 
backed up by one or two allusions in Aristophanes, must 
not be pressed too far. The confusion between the terms 
for drawing and for writing utensils arises from the same 
materials being used in practising both — as if we used pen- 
cils only in learning to write. The same stylus {ypa(pig) 
which was used for writing on wax tablets was used for 



60 GKEEK EDUCATIOl^^. 

drawing outlines on the same ; and the earliest training in 
drawing, if we may trust the statement of Bottiger, was 
the copying of the outlines of models proposed by the 
master.' After firmness had been attained, delicacy of out- 
line was practised, and ultimately a fine paint, which was 
used to paint black and red outlines on white tables, or 
white on black. 

§ 42. Though the diffusion of drawing was late and 
doubtful, this was not the case with music, in its strictest 
sense. For its importance was such as to make it a synonym 
for culture in general, and to leave us doubtful in some 
cases whether Greek authors are speaking in this wider or 
the narrower sense. But it is from music proper that they 
all would start, as affording the central idea of education. 

Here is one of the features in which Greek life is so dif- 
ferent from ours, that there is the greatest possible difficulty 
in understanding it. When modern educators introduce 
music into boys' recreation time, and say it has important 
influences in humanizing them, though in this they may ap- 
proach the language of Greek social reformers and states- 
men, they mean something widely different. The moderns 
mean nothing more (I conceive) than this, that the practice 
of music is a humane and civilizing pursuit, bringing boys 
into the company of their sisters and lady friends, with- 
drawing them from coarse and harmful pursuits, and thus 
indirectly making them gentler and more harmless men. 
It is as an innocent and social source of amusement that 
music is now recommended. Let us put out of all account 
the far lower and too often vulgar pressure on girls to learn 
to play or sing, whether they like it or not. For here the 
only advantage in view is not the girl's moral or social im- 

^ 'YTToypdcpeaOai is the technical term for this drawing of models. 



GEEEK EDUCATION. 61 

provementj but her advancement in life, by making her at- 
tractive in society. Such a view of musical training is 
quite beneath any serious notice in the present argument. 

What has above been said will be considered a fair state- 
ment of the importance given to music by modern think- 
ers. And accordingly, when we find all Greek educators 
and theorists ^ asserting a completely different kind of im- 
portance in music, we find oursQlves in presence of what is 
strictly an historical problem. It is not enough for the 
Greeks to admit that martial music has strong effects on 
soldiers going to battle, or that doleful music turns the 
mind to sadness in a solemn requiem for the dead. They 
went so far beyond this as to assert that by constantly 
playing martial music people would become martial, that 
by constantly playing and singing passionate and volup- 
tuous music people became passionate and voluptuous. 
Consequently, the proper selection of instruments of music 
and of words became a subject of serious importance. The 
flute was cultivated at Athens till Alcibiades spurned it for 
distorting his handsome face, and caused it to go out of 
fashion at Athens. But this aversion to the Boeotian in- 
strument was supported by the theorists on the ground that 
it had no moral tendency, that it was too exciting, and vague 
in the emotions it excited ; also, that it prevented the player 
from singing words to his music. 

But when we would infer from this that it is really the 
text, and not the actual music, which has the mental effect — 

^ Aristotle implies in his discussion (" Pol.," bk.vii. 1) that there 
had arisen in his day radical critics who asserted that music was 
merely an amusement, with no other importance. But he sets aside 
this opinion as hardly deserving of refutation, seeing how strong was 
the consensus of opinion against it. 



y 



62 GREEK EDUCATION. 

when we are disposed to add that in our own time instru- 
mental music is a higher and more intellectual kind of 
music, which has no moral effects save good ones, and that 
it is the libretto of the opera or the sentiment of the song 
which does harm — the answer from the Greek point of 
view is conclusive against us. Though much stress was laid 
upon the noble words which were sung, the music was^ 
known to have the princij^^l effect. Plato, in a celebrated 
passage, even inveighs bitterly against the gross immorality 
and luxuriousness of all mere instrumental music, which 
allowed of so much ornament, so much exaggeration of ex- 
pression, so much complexity of emotion, as to be wholly 
unsuited to his ideal state. It is, indeed, perfectly true that 
the intellectual effort in understanding instrumental music, 
at least some instrumental music, is far greater than is re- 
quired for appreciating, or imagining one appreciates, a sim- 
ple song. To understand a string quartet of Mendelssohn, 
or, still more, a symphony of Beethoven, is an intellectual 
task far exceeding the abilities of nine tenths of the audi- 
ences who hear them.^ But, apart from all such intellectual 
strain, there is a strong though indefinable passion about 
this very music which has the deepest effects on minds 
really tuned to appreciate it. 

If this be too subtle an instance, there is another so 
striking that it is worth mentioning on the chance of the 
reader's verifying it some day for himself. The Hungarian 
gypsies who form the national bands are chiefly occupied 
at entertainments in playing for the national dance — the 

^ Aristotle fully appreciates this, and admits, even in his perfect 
polity, popular music to suit the vulgar listener, who cannot under- 
stand what is really classical (" Pol.," viii.: 6 yap OeaTrjQ ^opriKog wv. 
K. r. X.). 



GREEK EDUCATION. 63 

cs&rdds — tunes which have now become familiar, some of 
them, through the transcriptions of Liszt and Johannes 
Brahms. The dance consists in a gradually increasing ex- 
citement, starting from a slow and grave beginning. The 
change is produced merely by increase of time in often re- 
peating the same air/ and also in adorning it with flourishes, 
which are added ad libitum and somewhat barbarously, by 
the members of the band according to their taste. The 
effect of this gradual hurrying and complicating of the 
same tune is inexpressibly affecting to the mind. It repre- 
sents* excitement, and often voluptuous excitement, to the 
highest' degree. It would have, thoroughly shocked Plato 
and his school. 

This simpler example, though less easily verifiable to the 
English reader, is really more to the point, for there can be 
no doubt that it is owing to the increase of complication, 
and the growth of the intellectual combinations in music, 
that we have lost sight of what the Greeks thought so vital 
— the direct moral effects of music. 

§ 43. The question remains. What did the Greeks con- 
vey by this theory ? Were they talking nonsense, or was 
their music so different from ours that their theories have no 
application in our day ? We cannot adopt either of these 
solutions, though all our researches into Greek scales, and 
into the scanty examples of tunes still extant, are unable to 
show clearly what they meant. We cannot make out why 
tunes in the Doric scale — a scale varying slightly from our 
ordinary minor scale — should be thought manly and moral, 
while Lydian measures — a scale like our ordinary major 

* In some cases a very florid adagio is succeeded by a lively plain 
tune in galop time. 



64 GREEK EDUCATION. 

scales — should be thouglit immoral.^ We must give up the 
problem of finding out a solution from the Greek scales. 
But this we may fairly assert, that our music, being directly 
descended from the old Church scales, which again were 
derived from the Greek, cannot be so totally different from 
that of the old Greeks as to warrant the inference that 
theirs could be moral or the reverse, and ours indifferent to 
morals. We may depend upon it that they did not talk 
nonsense, and that the general consent of all their thinking 
men on this curious point is well worthy of our most 
serious attention. 

It is probable that the far greater complexity of our 
music, the multiplication of instruments, the development 
of harmony, has brought out intellectual instincts unknown 
to them, and so obscured the moral questions once so strik- 
ing. The Chinese of the present day, who have a music 
far simpler than ours, mostly on the tetratonic scale, are 
said to speak of the moral influence of music as the Greeks 
did, and to put the composing and circulating of tunes un- 
der a certain control. They used to have state composers 
charged with this duty, in order to preserve and improve 
the morals of the people. Although, then, it seems that the 
simpler the character of a national music, the more clearly 
its moral effects are perceived, we only want a closer anal- 
ysis to detect the same qualities in our own composers. 
Much of the best music we now hear is unduly exciting : it 
feeds vain longings, indefinite desires, sensuous regrets ; and 

1 Some people have thought these scales only indicated differences 
of pitch. This is false, or rather a misapprehension, because in a 
fixed set of notes — like the white notes in our pianos — various scales 
could only be found by starting higher or lower. But how could a 
difference of pitch affect morals? 



GREEK EDUCATION. 65 

were the evidence stated in detail, the sceptical reader might 
be convinced that here we are far behind the Greek edu- 
cators, and that we often deliberately expose our children 
to great moral risk by inciting them to express their semi- 
conscions desires in affecting music. The majority who 
have no soul for music may be safe enough (though this is 
not certain) ; but those whose soul speaks through their 
fingers, or their voice, are running a very serious danger, of 
which there is not the least suspicion among modern edu- 
cators. To seek corroboration from the characters of lead- 
ing musicians were invidious, but not without instruction.* 

1 It is not difficult for a man who has devoted sufficient time to 
music, and has known many musical people, to find some analogy to 
Dorian, Phrygian, and Lydian modes, as moral agents, in our modern 
music. For surely the real meaning, the real depth, in the art is 
this : that it represents, and by representing stimulates within us, 
various emotions. Like all the other faculties of man, the emotions 
are a great class of mental phenomena improved and strengthened 
by a certain quantity of stimulus, but exaggerated and injured by be- 
ing overstrained, or too perpetually exercised. And it is the peculiar 
province of music to awaken emotions too subtle and various for the 
coarser utterance of words, and therefore to fill the mind with feel- 
ings delightful, indeed, and deep, but from their very nature unutter- 
able in words and inexplicable except by sympathy. You cannot con- 
vey to an unmusical man what is called the expression of an air — that 
is to say, the emotion it has caused within you. Let us add that if you 
could explain it, it would not have the distinctive value which it really 
possesses. It is this very feature in the question which has caused the 
moral effects of music to be wholly overlooked in a cold and logical 
age, when many men are not affected by it, and in which everything 
inexplicable by direct statement is likely to be considered unreal. 

The emotions, then, which it is the proper object of music to stimu- 
late, are of that subtle character that they cannot be defined. Dif- 
ferent composers will, no doubt, excite a different complexion of feel- 
ing in the mind. The works of Handel and J. S. Bach produce 



6Q GREEK EDUCATION. 

This inquiry is no digression which requires apology. 
It is a point in which we do not seem to have reflected as 
deeply as the ancients, and which is well worth discussing 

a thoroughly satisfied and cheerful temper, even when they treat sad 
subjects ; whereas Beethoven has almost always about him that pro- 
found melancholy which is to a mind in distress more sustaining in 
its sympathy than all the comfort of consolation. But tliis only de- 
scribes the general character of the emotions produced, and not the 
emotions themselves. For these are often not consciously before us 
at all, but influence us, like our prejudices, from a hidden vantage- 
ground within the soul. 

But, alas ! the history of this delicious stimulant is like that of all 
the rest. Men begin to crave for it, and then constantly pursue it ; 
they will not be satisfied without stronger doses, and, presently, even 
these cease to have their eff'ect except by intoxication. In such case, 
the stimulant is no longer applied to exciting an emotion, but to 
satisfying a passion. And this latter differs from the former in be- 
ing more violent (being, perhaps, compounded of several emotions), 
and in containing some coarser bodily element, either consciously or 
unconsciously. 

It may be illustrated from what are called sentimental songs. If 
we compare the old chaste love-songs that are found among the 
national melodies of England, and still better of Ireland, witli the 
love-songs in one of the greatest of modern operas, Gounod's "Faust," 
the distinction will be easily apprehended. When an Irish girl puts 
sweet wild music to the words of her song, and is then better satisfied 
with it than if she merely spoke it, the reason is tliis, that there are 
in her love a number of tender emotions, far too subtle to be uttered 
in the words, but which are conveyed in the expression of the melody. 
The very same may be said of the solemn, almost religious love-songs 
of the old Italian composers, in which knightly reverence for the 
gentler sex is so apparent. Let the soberest critic compare this 
music with the splendid duet in the gai'den scene of Gounod's 
"Faust," and more especially with the concluding song of the 
act (that in six flats). Expressive this music is beyond description, 
and expressive of love ; but how different ! 



GEEEK EDUCATION. 67 

witliout pedantry or sentimentality. It is also true that 
the general aspect of this side of Greek education is more 
interesting and fruitful than the inquiry into the structures 
of the particular instruments they used — an antiquarian 
question very minutely discussed by learned historians of 
music, and by compilers of archaeological lore. On these 
details we may here be brief. The subject has been ex- 
hausted by Mr. Chappell, our best historian of music. 

§ 44. In education we never hear of the use of those 
more complicated instruments, such as the Tpiywvov, or 
harp, the double flute and others, which were used by pro- 
fessionals. On the other hand, the favorite syrinx, or pan- 
dean-pipe, was only in fashion among shepherds, and not 
in schools. We may assume that nothing was there ad- 
mitted but the simplest form of stringed instrument, the 
lyre (kvpa), which was originally made by stretching strings 
across the inside of the back shell of a tortoise. These 
shells are often to be found dry and clean in river-courses 
through Greece. The tortoise when dead is eaten out by 
ants or other insects ; the shells separate, and are carried 
away and cleaned by floods. This most primitive kind 
was, however, supplanted by a more elaborate form, which 
used the two shells of the tortoise, and fastened, in the po- 
sition of its front legs, a pair of goat's horns, which were 
spanned near their extremity by the ^vyov, or yoke, to 
which strings were drawn from the far end of the shell, 
over the nether surface, or breast shell, which was flat. 
This, with seven or at most ten strings, was the ordinary 
instrument used to teach Greek boys to play. The more 
elaborate cithara, which still survives, both in name and 
structure, among the Tyrolese, was a lyre with a sound-box 
built of thin wood or metal plates, and elongated into hoi- 



68 GREEK EDUCATION. 

low arms (where the lyre only had horns, or solid wooden 
arms), so that the resonance was considerably greater. This, 
in the form called TrrjKrig, had fifteen or more strings, and 
does not here concern us. The use of the bow for string- 
ed instruments was unknown to the Greeks, but they used 
for playing the plectrum, which is still used by the Tyro- 
lese for their zither. 

The favorite wind-instrument was not our flute, which 
was called TrXaymuXoc, or " cross-played aulos," and which 
was not popular, but our clarinet, the ai/Xoc, which was 
held straight, was wide at the mouth, and produced its tone 
by means of a vibrating tongue in the mouthpiece. The 
ordinary aulos was played without any artificial aid; but 
for the double aulos, where two reeds of different pitch 
were blown from the same mouthpiece, a leather bandage 
was tied over the player's mouth, into which the mouth- 
piece was fitted. This was the most extreme form of that 
disfigurement of which the Greeks complained in flute- 
playing. 

The tunes taught to boys are now lost, and we cannot 
hope to reproduce them. But there is good reason to 
think that they would not suit the developed taste of our 
day, and would be considered dull and even ugly. This 
we may infer from the few extant fragments of Greek 
tunes. 



GREEK EDUCATION". 69 



CHAPTER YIL 

THE LAST STAGE OF EDUCATION MILITARY TRAINING OF 

THE EPHEBI. 

§ 45. The small size and narrow bounds of Greek states 
made the support of a professional army seldom possible, 
and accordingly we find expedients now suddenly again 
become fashionable from very different causes — a citizen 
army, and general liability to military service. No Greek 
boy was allowed to pass from his school-days into citizen 
life without some preliminary training and practice in the 
use of arms and in military discipline. This is the disci- 
pline of the ephebij or grown-up boys, concerning which so 
much has been written of late years by the learned. A 
number of inscriptions regarding the duties and ceremonies 
to be performed by them have been lately discovered, and 
we seem to see in them a sort of general agreement through- 
out Greece, rather differing in the time allotted, and in other 
details, than in principles.^ There were actual masters in 
the art of using arms, so far as this was not included in the 
gymnastic exercises of the palaestra ; we do not hear, how- 
ever, of much drilling, and probably the drill of Greek ar- 
^mies, if we except the Spartans, was very imperfect in the 
best period. It was not until the growth of mercenary ar- 
mies, and (almost simultaneously) the great military out- 
burst at Thebes under Epaminondas, that war became a 
science in our sense. 

^ Cf. the list in Grasberger, ill. 65. 



70 GREEK EDrCATION". 

On tlie other hand, all the patrol duty of the frontier 
was done by these ephehi, who, at about the age of sixteen, 
were brought into the rank of citizens by a solemn service 
and sacrifice, at which they swore oaths of fidelity and pa- 
triotism, and undertook their military duties as a prelimi- 
nary to their full life of political burgesses. The orphans 
of citizens killed in battle had their arms and military dress 
presented to them (at Athens) by the State. The youths 
assumed the short dark-gray cloak {yXajxvo), and the broad- 
brimmed soft hat (7rf'ra(Toc), suitable for marching duty, 
and then, as TcepiTvokoi, or patrolling police, they looked to 
the safety of the country, the condition of the roads, and 
occupied the frontier forts, of which we see such striking 
remains still in Attica. The mountain fort of Phylae, that 
of Dekelea, of CEnoe (or Eleutherse), of Sunium, of Thori- 
kos, of Oropos, and others, were the stations from which 
the frontiers were patrolled. 

It is doubtless owing to this precaution that, though we 
read of insecurity in the streets of Athens by night, we 
never read of brigandage through the country. Some 
scholars have, indeed, asserted that the irepiTroXoi had po- 
lice duty to perform in the city, and at the public assem- 
bly. This we need not accept; though on solemn occa- 
sions, and when a great ceremony was to be held, they ap- 
peared, not only to preserve order, but to participate in the 
show. It is the latter duty which we see them performing 
in the famous friezes of the Parthenon, which represent 
the Panathenaic procession. They were allotted a separate 
place in the theatre, and were in every respect regarded as 
a distinct order in the State, the hope and pride of their 
city, and its ornament on all stately occasions. 

Their patrol duty on the frontier was appointed to thera 



GUEEK EDUCATION. 71 

for divers reasons. They attained through it the discipline 
of arms, and learned some of the hardships of campaign- 
ing. They learned an accurate knowledge of the roads 
and ways through their country, and of the nature of their 
frontier, and that of their neighbors. They were kept away 
from the mischiefs which threaten youths of their age in 
every city. 

But the Athenians and other Greeks were careful not to 
commit the mistake of which we now hear so much — that 
of expecting these youths under twenty to face the enemy 
in battle. They were specially reserved for garrison duty, 
and one of Myronides' victories was particularly noted, 
because he fought it with these boys, who were not expect- 
ed to stand firm in the horrors of a battle. 

§ 46. According to the words of the oath, indeed, as pre- 
served by Stobseus and Pollux, the standing firm beside 
one's comrade is specially mentioned ; but even if this in- 
teresting document be not spurious, as Cobet supposes,^ 
this particular declaration may be considered prospective, 
and applying to the remainder of the citizen's life. I add 
the words here for the benefit of those who have not the 
Greek text at hand : " I will never disgrace these hallowed 
weapons, or abandon my comrade, beside whomsoever I am 
placed, and I will fight for both sacred and common things 
personally and with my fellows. I will not leave m-y coun- 
try less, but greater and better by sea and land, than I may 
have received it. I will obey the rulers for the time being, 
and obey the established laws, and whatsoever others the 
commonwealth may agree to establish ; and if any one 
abolish the ordinances or disobey them, I will not allow it, 
but will defend them personally and with the rest. I will 

1 "N. L.,"p. 233. 
6 



72 GKEEK EDUCATION. 

obey the established religion. Be my witnesses Aglauros, 
Eny alios, Ares, Zeus, Tballo, Auxo, Hegemone." Though 
Cobet be right that some features of this oath can hardly 
have been generally used through the course of Athenian 
history, and that it was probably made up at a late period, 
the list of gods, so curious and unlike what a late pedant 
would invent, points to some old source ; and perhaps there 
are other really historical traditions in it. 

The general authenticity of this text has rather been 
confirmed by the discovery of the oath of the ephebi of 
Dreros (near Knossus) in Crete — an inscription of un- 
doubted authenticity. Here, there are not only the gen- 
eral declarations of loyalty and patriotism, but special oaths 
to support the allied Knossus, and declarations of hatred 
and hostility against the town of Lyttos.^ This formal 
declaration of hatred may be compared with the outspoken 
aristocratic oath quoted by Aristotle : " I will be ill-dis- 
posed to the demos, and will do it whatever harm I can 
devise." 

The various religious ceremonies connected with the ad- 
mission to the status of an ephebus, which was considered 
distinct both from a boy and from a man — the sacrifices, 
the cutting of the long hair (except in Sparta), the solemn 
assembly of relatives, remind us strongly of the confirma- 
tion of the Christian Church, to which it is the heathen 
parallel. 

§ 47. What a solemn procession of ephebi must have 
been is best shown by the equestrian and sacrificial pro- 
cession on the frieze of the Parthenon. We notice some 
young men naked, some in the short cloak and hat, riding 

^ Cf. for the text of his oath Philol. for 1854, p. 694, or Grasberger, 
iii. 61. 



GREEK EDUCATION. 73 

horses and leading victims. The riding of the horses was 
not so easy as with us, for, in the first place, they had no 
saddles and stirrups, and, in the second, it was thought nec- 
essary for a good display to have the horse continually on 
his hind-legs. A quiet walking horse in a procession was 
thought very tame by the Greeks. Hence the manage- 
ment of these curvetting and caracoling steeds must have 
necessitated careful training in their riders. Again, we 
find others leading bulls to the sacrifice, and the frequent 
mention of contests with bulls has even misled many au- 
thorities to imagine that the Attic ephebi practised bull- 
fighting. The fact is that an unruly victim was of evil 
omen, and hence the careful leading of these beasts, with 
skill and strength combined, so as to make a proper part of 
a great show, came under ephebic training. This, too, we 
see on the Parthenon frieze. Wherever, in fact, any public 
display was required, the artistic taste of the Greeks or- 
dained that the fairest and most stalwart men should be 
there to adorn it ; and as nothing is so beautiful as a crowd 
of vigorous fresh youths, in the bloom of life and the hap- 
piness of youth, we can conceive how splendid was a State 
procession then compared with those of our day, when the 
grandest show is one of old generals, effete ofiicials, and 
other venerable but decrepit magnates, who must be cov- 
ered with fine clothes, brilliants, and orders to prevent their 
real ugliness and decay from being painfully obtrusive. In 
Roman days we hear of these youths being employed as 
guards of honor when distinguished foreigners visited 
Athens. 

§ 48. Though this ephebic training is spoken of as univer- 
sal — and it seems that after his inscription into the register 
{\rjt,Lap^iKov ypafi/j.aTe'top) of his deme, which was his patent 



74 GEEEK EDrCATION. 

of citizen stip, every Athenian lad was bound to serve as^a- 
troller {TrepiTroXog) and undergo his military training — there 
must have been many exceptions; and, indeed, this whole ed- 
ucation is evidently that of the higher classes, and unsuitable 
for the poor. In Roman days, we even find strangers coming 
to Athens and enrolling themselves among the ephebi, as 
those wealthy foreigners who understand what culture means 
often send their sons to England to receive the unique 
training of the English public schools. But this points to 
its being a privilege, a special and much-prized education, 
though we do not know what restrictions there were, or 
how the sons of poorer men, who could not afford the time 
and outlay, avoided it. The number of official ephebi was 
never, I fancy, large, and always a class from which Phidias 
might well select for his models, when seeking for ideal 
types of youth and manliness. 

It has, indeed, not been sufficiently noticed, in the various 
essays on this ephebic training, that the very idea of such 
a class never occurs in Herodotus or in Thucydides, though 
it does in Xenophon ; ^ and if Plutarch speaks of Alcibia- 
des influencing the ephebi in the gymnasia with his wild 
schemes of western conquest, we may be sure the historian 
transferred the titles and notions of his age to older times. 
In the third century b.c., there are so many inscriptions 
about this class extant that it must have assumed a most 
prominent place in Attic life. From that time onward 
into Roman times, we hear of it constantly, and from many 
sources. It is impossible that Socrates and his school should 
not have alluded to it, had it already formally existed. We 
may therefore infer that though its component parts — the 
formal enrolment and sacrifices at a certain age, the patrol 
1 Especially in his "Education of Cyrus." 



GEEEK EDUCATION. 



75 



duties, tbe gymnastic and musical training, the procession 
duty at festivals — were developed in the best period of 
Attic history, their official reduction to a State system 
of education could not have taken place till later, till the 
decay of practical public life had given men time to theo- 
rize about methods of restoring by education what was 
irreparably lost. 

Apparently, the earliest formal notice is in a fragment 
of the orator Lycurgus, who, in his famous speech on his 
own management of the Athenian exchequer, alluded to 
the statue of a certain Epicrates, which had been set up in 
bronze on account of his law about the ephebi. We cannot 
tell whether this was a special enactment or not. But it 
may have been the very law which established this fa- 
mous system, so praised and sought after by all the Hel- 
lenistic v/orld in Roman days. If so, the establishment 
would date from the very time when it proved of little real 
importance to the history of Attica or of the world. 

Nevertheless, the many inscriptions reveal to us certain 
curious and interesting features, which make us approve of 
the good taste of Cicero and his friends, when they sent 
their boys away from Rome to Athens, as we send our 
sons to schools in England. Thus the learned Germans 
who have investigated with great pains the various titles 
of the magistrates or dignitaries among these ephebi are 
often at a loss to determine whether they are masters set 
over them, or leaders among the ephebi themselves. In- 
deed, the so-called apxiov twv e(j)r)(ju)v (head of the ephebi) 
appears to have been no other than the most successful 
and brilliant youth, the representative and spokesman of 
the rest, like the senior prefect at some of our public 
schools. No doubt, learned men who, in future ages, in- 



76 GEEEK EDTJCATION". 

vestigate the ephebic training of the English will puzzle 
themselves over the senior prefect at Winchester, and won- 
der whether he was a master or a boy ; and, if a boy, how 
he could have so much power intrusted to him. We also 
find that the expenditure of keeping up the solemn proces- 
sions and public contests was so great that the ephebi 
themselves were encouraged to contribute largely ; and if 
they were rich, they gained an importance disproportionate 
(we may suspect) to their age. What is even more inter- 
esting to English students is that they had independent 
clubs and associations, and even held solemn meetings, 
where they used the terms of public life, and entitled the 
resolutions {\pr](piafxaTa) enacted in their assembly (ayopa) 
laws {yofxoi). They had archons, strategi, agoranomi, and 
even areopagites in these associations of youths. It must 
have been with the approval of these formal meetings that 
the gymnastic side of the ephebic training became gradu- 
ally discredited. Whether the dislike of great generals 
like Alexander and Philopoemen to athletics contributed 
to change public opinion, we cannot tell. But I confess to 
feeling a considerable sympathy with the reform which as- 
serted the superiority of hunting and riding to the exer- 
cises of the gymnasium — a change which is regarded by 
some German critics as a melancholy sign of degradation. 

§ 49. In these later days, when the seven subjects of 
knowledge, including rhetoric, philosophy, etc., were for- 
mally adopted, the ephebic training assumed the character of 
a university course. There were, indeed, masters appointed 
for fencing, the use of arms, dancing, and wrestling, as of 
old; but the leading philosophical schools did not then 
carry off the youths from the ephebic training ; they rather 
supplied it with formal professors. In the better and strictly 



GREEK EDUCATION. 77 

classical days, before we hear of the technical term ephehi^ 
the practical training of the youths for patrols, and then as 
incipient citizens, rather corresponded to what we call the 
sixth form at a public school, and did not embrace really 
philosophic teaching, such as is supposed to be found at 
our universities. It had the same mixture of the physical 
and intellectual, the same attention to mere accomplish- 
ments, the same careful surveillance which we practise in 
schools, but which are not a complete introduction to full 
citizen life. This was the summit of Spartan training, 
where the object was not to train really political men able 
to discuss public affairs and assist in the government of the 
State, but brave soldiers, and fine men, physically able to en- 
dure hardship and submit to strict discipline. Something 
quite different and intellectually higher was needful for a 
really democratic life, for an intelligent understanding of 
State functions, and the proper discussion of them. It was 
all very well to dance complicated figures with grace, to 
play the lyre and sing sweetly with it, to wrestle and run 
with force and ease. This was the old training, which made 
fine soldiers, but good citizens only in the sense of stupidly 
ignorant, and therefore obedient, hearers of the orders of 
their superiors. The necessity of a change came with the 
rise of democracy in Greece, and the Greeks provided 
themselves, when the need arose, with teachers suited to 
their wants. These men, the Sophists, were the first who 
gave any education corresponding to our university courses, 
and to these we now turn. 



VS GEEEK EDUCATION". 



CHAPTER VIII. 

HIGHER EDUCATION^ — THE SOPHISTS AND SOCRATES. 

§ 50. As every one knows now, the real position and 
merits of the Sophists were first brought to light by Grote 
in his monumental " History of Greece." Since the pub- 
lication of that book the English scholar has learned that 
sophist, in early Greek history, is not synonymous with liar 
and villain, undermining public morals and sapping relig- 
ion. Within the last few years the influence of this new 
view is gradually reaching the Germans, a nation not very 
ready to adopt, in philology at least, English opinions. 
But this very natural reluctance has its exceptions ; for in 
the most important new book on the history of Greek 
philosophy, Zeller's last edition, we find that, in spite of 
sundry reservations, the main results of Grote's investiga- 
tions are recognized and adopted. 

Before I go on to appropriate from these authors that 
part of their account of the Sophists which belongs prop- 
erly to the subject of Greek education, it is worth reflect- 
ing a moment on so very remarkable an instance of mis- 
understood evidence as this controversy exhibits. The 
main body of philologists simply followed like a flock of 
sheep Plato's and Aristotle's polemic against their own ri- 
vals. Plato inherited from Socrates a strong antipathy to 
these practical and often utilitarian teachers. But it was 
for the most part the same sort of antipathy that the solid 
university professor of our own day has for the successful 
crammer. The competition mania of the present day has 



GEEEK EDUCATION. 79 

created a demand for these specialists, who do not profess 
anything more than their special trade of passing men for 
examinations, and who do it admirably, and derive from it 
large emoluments. So the rise of democratic institutions, 
and the spread of international debates, made the fifth cen- 
tury B.C. in Greece one that required suddenly a set of prac- 
tical teachers for men who practised at the bar or debated 
in the public assembly. AVe are too much in the habit of 
thinking that such men required training merely in rheto- 
ric — in the way of disputing and of plausibly stating their 
views. They required more ; they required education in 
general subjects, and of course not a deep education, but 
such a one as would enable them to talk intelligently, 
and make and understand allusions to the deeper questions 
of the day. We hear that now in America it is not an 
uncommon thing for men who have risen suddenly in the 
world, and for their wives, to send for a teacher and say, 
" I am now in a position to move in educated society, and 
to be required to speak on public affairs. My early train- 
ing was entirely neglected. I want you to instruct me in 
the ordinary topics of the day, as well as in those points of 
art and science which may be serviceable for my purpose." 
And such instruction, very superficial, no doubt, and inac- 
curate, but highly practical, is often given. 

§ 51. Now, let us imagine that an intelligent Greek or 
other foreigner, totally unacquainted with modern journal- 
ism, were to seek for evidence of its moral value and the 
real benefits it confers upon us. What answer would he 
receive ? If he applied to the journalists themselves, they 
would tell him that it was their object so to furnish their 
readers with all the current topics of instruction as to make 
them able to converse intelligently without any further 



80 GREEK EDUCATION. 

study. They would also profess to be leaders of the moral 
sense of the public, praising what was of good repute, and 
blaming the wicked, exposing abuses, and expounding vir- 
tue. They would also claim the merit of supplying the 
public with arguments in favor of a disputed conclusion, 
so that men might be furnished with weapons to meet their 
intellectual adversaries. He would naturally ask, on hear- 
ing this exalted programme, whether all this was done out 
of pure philanthropy or with any ulterior view ; more es- 
pecially, whether there was any pecuniary gain attached. 
They would reply that they did indeed take money for 
their teaching — and the laborer is worthy of his hire — but 
they would appeal to any of their readers whether the in- 
struction afforded was not greatly in excess of their remu- 
neration. With this reply our stranger might perhaps be 
but half satisfied, and might have some suspicion that in- 
dependent evidence would not come amiss ; and on inquir- 
ing: from thou2:htful men what emoluments were to be 
gained by this profession, he would hear that, if successful, 
it was one of the most lucrative known, and that many of 
the contributors confessedly worked, not for the sake of 
conviction, but of gain. He would next inquire whether 
success was always in their case a test of solid merit, 
and would discover that, however it might be so intellect- 
ually, from a moral point of view such was not the case. 
The most thoughtful and candid members of our society 
would explain to him that, here as elsewhere, men delighted 
more in reading what fell in with their prejudices than 
what exposed them, and that by pandering to this defect, 
and following in the wake of public opinion, newspapers 
often succeeded better than by honest and fearless teach- 
ing. He would hear that almost every paper belonged to 



GEEEK EDUCATIOiq". 81 

some political party, whose errors and weaknesses it felt 
bound to justify and protect. Furthermore, that for the 
sake of clearness and of brevity, as well as from a want of 
care to do more than please for the hour, many arguments 
in the daily papers were superficial and illogical, not 
clearing, but obscuring, the real questions at issue. He 
would certainly, therefore, in the course of his inquiry, 
come to look upon them as a class or profession ; but yet, 
if he spoke of them as such, he might be surprised to hear 
himself corrected by the journalists or by their friends. 
They would deny that they were a distinct profession, and 
say with truth that all intelligent men who desired to teach 
were to some extent journalists, who are marked by no 
fixed principle, by the bonds of no special education. Even 
their own critics, he would hear with surprise, at times 
joined them and wrote to instruct the public. They were 
a class and not a class, a profession and not a profession ; 
with a common object, to some extent a common method, 
but hardly any common principles, any direct co-operation, 
any common interest, to outbalance their jealous rivalry. 

§ 52. Is this a fair picture of the moral side of journal- 
ism ? It is obtained simply by describing, in the wake of 
Plato and of Mr. Grote and of Sir Alexander Grant, the old 
Greek Sophists. These, then, were really the Greek jour- 
nalists, who, before the days of posts and printing, carried 
about from city to city the latest news, the most recent 
criticism, the most modern views of politics and of educa- 
tion, the newest theories on morals and on reliofion. It 
may be thought irreverent to compare St. Paul to our 
daily press, but I cannot better explain myself than by 
pointing to that most graphic scene in the Acts where the 
apostle arrives at Athens. He is seized by the eager and 



82 GEEEK EDUCATION. 

curious public as we seize the precious journal in some re- 
mote country place -when we have been separated from the 
current of affairs for a few days. And, no doubt, they first 
asked him what local or political information he had 
brought from his previous sojourn, just as we first read the 
messages from Paris or London; and when this curiosity 
was satisfied, they began to inquire what more he had to 
say ; and, finding that he was an ethical teacher, or sophist, 
they proceeded at greater leisure to enjoy the rest of his 
communications, just as we should turn on to the leading 
article, the correspondence about ritualistic innovations, or 
the reviews. St. Paul was taken for a sophist, and justly 
so in some sense, for he taught morals and religion ; still 
more, he taught a new religion. We all know how far he 
differed from that class. Flippant, plausible, ingenious, 
sceptical, they were the idols of the public, but the aversion 
of those deeper minds to whom the ignorance and preju- 
dice of the masses are not a source of material gain, but 
rather a grievous and galling spiritual burden. 

§ 53. This is what the Greek Sophists really were, cram- 
mers not for special competitions, but for the general re- 
quirements of higher society and of political life. They 
crammed more or less honestly, more or less efficiently, for 
a generation or two. Then the want of them passed away, 
as we may hope the want of the modern crammer will pass 
away with the superstition that we can find out practical 
merit by mere examinations. At Athens and throughout 
Greece the encyclopsedic teaching of the Sophists was pres- 
ently carried into minute specialty by teachers of rhetoric, 
of dialectic, and of morals, just as the professors of geology 
of thirty years ago are being supplanted by special teaching 
in fossil anatomy, botany, and mineralogy. From the mid- 



GREEK EDUCATION. 83 

die of the fourtli century b.c. the Sophists disappear as a 
class altogether. It is, nevertheless, certain that they left 
no bad name behind them in Greece, except among the 
immediate followers of Plato and Aristotle ; for in the sec- 
ond century a.d. the title was revived as one of the high- 
est honor, and attaching to the greatest literary post in 
Athens. 

We need not assert that these teachers were as strictly 
business-like as the modern coach, or that they confined 
themselves as strictly to their definite object. They often 
boasted of great performances which were beyond the reach 
of ordinary people, and were merely meant for display. 
But then their aims were far wider and more varied than 
those of the coach, and were not to be tested by the clear 
and definite result of the examination lists. Hence Plato 
and Socrates found it easy to pick holes in their pro- 
grammes, and to accuse them of getting money under false 
pretences. These philosophers went further, and reviled 
them for taking money at all, bartering their wisdom for 
gold, and imparting virtue for a fee. All this was mere 
jealous polemic, and based on an unfair estimate of the at- 
tempt made by practical men to supply a public want. Yet 
even though Plato himself paints the leading Sophists as 
most respectable men, though we know from independent 
evidence that they were so, whether Plato confessed it or 
not, the attacks on the profession made by him and by 
Aristophanes — the one a radical reformer, and the other a 
blind conservative — have so imposed upon the learned that 
they have completely mistaken the real evidence on the 
question, and set down the arguments for the prosecution 
as if they were a judicial charge or a mature verdict. So 
powerful is the influence of literary skill, when it causes 



84: GREEK EDUCATION. 

tlie survival of a single work amid the loss of all its fel- 
lows. Because Plato is our leading witness on the Sophists, 
because Aristophanes' satire has survived, men imagine that 
this must be the general verdict, and set down the bias 
and the prejudice of an individual as the reflex of public 
opinion. 

§ 54. These men really shaped out the first form which 
university education took in Europe, meaning by university 
education that higher general training which, coming after 
school discipline, trains men for the duties of social and 
political as well as scientific and literary life. 

In the city life of the Greeks, when residence in any 
foreign place entailed great inconvenience, it was evident 
that this university teaching could not occupy a fixed 
place. It was not till the amalgamation of the Greek na- 
tion under Roman sway that Athens became (like Alexan- 
dria) strictly a university town. So, as the students could 
not gather round the early sophist, he was obliged to go to 
them, wandering through Greece, and staying for a consid- 
erable time in each great centre, where the native youth 
oould profit by him. But even in early days there were 
some enthusiastic pupils, who abandoned home and coun- 
try, and wandered about as aliens in the wake of these 
brilliant teachers. The latter generally made high display 
of their acquirements, and gave exhibitions of eloquence 
and of argument to show the value of their wares. They 
lived an ostentatious life, like the professional artists of 
the present day, and though they made large profits, saved 
but little money. Their first object was to make ready 
and practical citizens, men able to collect and express their 
thoughts and give sound advice on public matters. For 
this purpose they not only taught the art of rhetoric and 



GEEEK EDUCATION". 85 

that of disputation, but they were obliged to enter upon 
some of the great theories which form the basis of all prac- 
tical life — the problems of philosophy, of ethics, and of re- 
ligion. As we might expect, they took in all these a 
utilitarian view, such as a practical crammer would take. 
Some of them, such as Gorgias and Protagoras, studied 
philosophy deeply, but only to show that a devotion to 
metaphysic or to abstract science was idle, all knowledge 
being subjective, and varying with the age. Man was the 
measure of things; abstract nature was mere nothing. On 
the more pressing question of morals, though practically 
sound enough, and though some of them, such as Prodicus, 
were celebrated as moral preachers, they denied all immu- 
table morality, and were content with obeying the existing 
laws of society, without admitting any permanent scientific 
basis for them. It was Socrates who first applied his great 
mind to solve this question, and his classes of young men 
— he was in this a regular sophist or university teacher, 
and was commonly so called — were specially exercised in 
seeking for the permanent and immutable ideas implied 
in our moral terms which characterize our moral actions. 
As regards religion, seeing that the Greek faith had grown 
up in myths and poetry, and was imbedded in an elab- 
orate polytheistic mythology full of immoralities and ab- 
surdities, the Sophists were, as we might expect, scepti- 
cal, and so far opposed to the conservative public. One of 
them, Protagoras, actually professed his unbelief in the na- 
tional faith, and was persecuted accordingly ; others, though 
more cautious, and regarding any formal denial of tran- 
scendental truths as hardly practical, were justly suspect- 
ed of agnosticism, as their moral essays kept suspiciously 
clear of theology. They were regarded as unsound in 



86 GREEK EDUCATION. 

faith, and hence alleged to be unsound in morals by the 
orthodox, whose faith the Sophists charged fairly enough 
with the same objection. 

■ § 55. So the education of the Sophists came to be re- 
garded by the soberest part of the public, the steady- 
going old people, as subversive of ancient and venerable 
traditions. In religion it was supposed to suggest, if not 
to teach, infidelity ; in politics and society, radicalism. 
This is exactly the sort of charge we hear made by the old- 
fashioned public against the universities — still more in 
Germany, where the gulf between the average and the learn- 
ed part of society is far wider than it is here. When we 
university teachers make young men think, even though 
carefully avoiding (as we are in honor bound) anything 
which may shock the traditions in which they have been 
brought up, the mental agitation produced must, nevertheless, 
lead them to reject at least some superstitions which they 
have accepted on weak evidence. If our education does not 
produce this result, it is not worthy the name. But this 
partial and cautious scepticism is of course identified by 
the older generation, who are less spritually developed, 
with the rejection of vital truths. And there are many 
cases where the young sceptic really oversteps his just 
bounds, and becomes as rash in negation as his fathers 
were uncritical in affirmation. Let us add that the ortho- 
dox party are not very particular about evidence, and will 
start a calumnious charge against a teacher whom they 
suspect and fear, with very little care about really proving 
their case. This party are, moreover, always supplied with 
powerful allies by the jealousies and differences among 
the teachers themselves, the elder and less able of whom 
often try to sustain their waning influence by an alliance. 



GREEK EDrCATION". 87 

with orthodoxy, and make up by theological popularity 
what they have been unable to attain for want of intellect- 
ual force and sympathy. 

^ All these things, which now happen constantly in our 
universities, are the exact counterparts of what happened 
in Greece in the days of the Sophists. They taught clever 
young men such surface-knowledge of science as disgusted 
the deeper experts, and, what was more, they taught them 
that the experts were pursuing a vain shadow, and attempt- 
ing insoluble problems. They taught them to avoid be- 
coming specialists, and to apply themselves to public life. 
Just as the English universities can boast of many great 
politicians and literary men, rather than of specialists in 
the sciences, and as they might hold that to produce a 
Gladstone or a Cornewall Lewis is better than to produce 
a Faraday, so the Sophists made general culture their pro- , 
fessed object, and so far quarrelled with deeper philosophy.^ 
§ 56. The same sort of proceeding in morals brought 
them into contact with Socrates, whose daily teaching may 
be regarded as the best university teaching of the day. 
Socrates was in all external respects a sophist, and com- 
monly regarded as such. He did not, indeed, travel about, 
being luckily a citizen of the largest and most enlightened 
city in Greece. He despised, too, wealth and ostentation 
of the ordinary kind, though he made himself no less re- 
markable by his voluntary poverty. But in more impor- 
tant respects, in despising abstract science and speculative 
philosophy, and sifting traditional theories of morals and 
society, in radically shaking up and often upsetting all 
preconceived notions, Socrates was a sophist, and one of 
the most dangerous of them. He sought, indeed, to do 
what they had not done — to find some better and surer 

Y 



88 GEEEK EDUCATION. 

positive basis for morals, but the negative part of liis work 
was far the most successful and striking. Hence the con- 
servative public at Athens not only suspected and disliked 
him, but at the prosecution of their mouthpiece, Anytus, a 
most respectable and earnest man, condemned him to death, 
when he showed clearly that no verdict of theirs would re- 
strain him from pursuing his occupation. This sentence 
on Socrates, which the orthodox party at Athens never re- 
gretted, and even justified, should indeed be a warning to 
those who calumniate their fellows in the interests of ortho- 
doxy. But with this we are not now concerned. 

The higher teaching of the Sophists and of Socrates, 
which was at best desultory, passed into the hands of suc- 
cessors like Plato and Isocrates, who established regular 
schools, and subjected their pupils to a regular course of 
training. This was all the more necessary, as the training 
given by Socrates had no definite limits, and his tendency 
was to keep young men talking and discussing ethical prob- 
lems when they ought to have turned to practical life. 
Leisure was, indeed, in such high repute among the old 
Greeks that idleness was not reprehended as it should have 
been. The orthodox party made this objection with much 
force to the school or following of Socrates. In the case 
of Plato there was a regular course of higher philosophy, 
and his principal pupils became, in their turn, philosophic 
teachers. But the school of Plato was even more than that 
of Socrates a university training, for which there may even 
have been a matriculation examination, if we adopt literally 
the statement that no one was allowed to enter without 
knowing elementary geometry. The great fault of Plato, 
as of Socrates, was that he did not introduce men to 
public or practical life, but made them philosophers or idlers. 



GKEEK EDUCATION. 89 

In science, indeed, tliis special training was of great service, 
and the history of geometry would have been very different 
without these speculators. But the Platonic pupil when 
completely trained was professedly, according to the master 
himself, disinclined to join in politics, and only to be per- 
suaded by his sense of duty and the willing obedience of 
the public. 

It is on account of the same sort of exclusiveness, even 
monastic in its strictness, that the famous brotherhood of 
Pythagoras deserves but a small place in any general his- 
tory of Greek education. Admission to this brotherhood 
was only obtained through a strict novitiate, and the ob- 
ject of it was to combine peculiar religious asceticism with 
an aristocratic policy, and a sort of club life antagonistic 
to ordinary society. We have, unfortunately, only few au- 
thentic details concerning this sect, and know it best from 
the few echoes of it in early, and the many in later, Pla- 
tonism. But it, too, may be regarded as a higher intel- 
lectual or university training, combined with collegiate life 
and its restraints, thus anticipating in spirit that feature 
which, makes the English universities so peculiar among 
the modern seats of learning in Europe. 

I will return to Plato and his followers when we come 
to consider the theories of education which the philoso- 
phers based on the phenomena of Greek histor}'-. And be- 
fore we pass from the Sophists to the Rhetors, and show a 
further specializing of higher education in that direction, 
we may say a word in conclusion on the external history 
of these once celebrated, and since much -maligned, edu- 
cators. We hardly know them at all, save through their 
enemies, the specialist philosophers and specialist rhetori- 
cians ; and what we hear of them must be distrusted and 



90 GEEEK EDUCATION. 

sifted accordingly. Nevertheless, even from their enemies, 
we learn that the three greatest of them — Protagoras, 
Gorgias, and Prodicus — were eminently respectable and re- 
spected men. So was the fourth in importance, Hippias, 
though the encyclopaedic pretensions he put forth to prac- 
tise all trades and manual dexterities, as well as philosophy, 
history, and rhetoric, have left an unpleasant impression 
against him. Nevertheless, he was honored at Elis, his 
native place, as their leading citizen, and compiled for them 
the annals of their famous past in such a way as to gain 
universal acceptance. 

As regards the other three, though they all professed to 
impart general education, and to give their pupils that neg- 
ative training in philosophy which would arm them against 
false theories, yet they were each remarkable for some spe- 
cial line. Protagoras, apart from his famous philosophical 
position of the relativity of knowledge to him who knows, 
openly professed to teach political wisdom, and despised all 
other kinds of knowledge in comparison with it. Gorgias, 
on the other hand, though he wrote a famous treatise with 
the very Hegelian title "concerning nature or the non- 
existent," devoted his main attention to rhetoricy and was 
truly the father of technical Greek oratory. For though we 
hear of Corax and Tisias in Sicily, and of Empedocles, as 
having cultivated the art, the first recognized theorist and 
practical speaker was Gorgias. He not only delivered set 
speeches, but so trained himself as to deliver elegant dis- 
courses on any proposed subject, apparently without prepa- 
ration, but of course with the help of a clever system of 
well-arranged commonplaces, which he applied with quick- 
ness and variety. The philos<:»phy of Prodicus was chiefly 
ethical, and his apologues were very popular and quoted 



OREEK EDUCATION. 91 

in after-days. But more important were his grammatical 
studies, whereby he fixed the parts of speech, and laid the 
groundwork of the grammar of the modern languages of 
Europe. Indeed, the strict attention to form shown by all 
the Sophists led them to study language with peculiar care, 
and they were the forefathers of modern philologists in 
this as in some other respects. 

A great many more Sophists are known by name, some 
of them depicted or maligned in Plato's dialogues, such as 
Thrasymachus, Polus, Euenus ; but they do not present to 
us any special features. All are said to have insisted 
on the dictates of society as superior to any supposed law 
of nature, and this Hobbism has brought upon them the 
anathemas of moralists. Within the century 470-370 b.c. 
their part was played out ; and even Plato, in his later works, 
no longer thinks them worthy of refutation. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE RHETORS — ISOCRATES. 

§ 57. It is argued by many scholars, who believe all that 
Plato says literally, and who think that the dark pictures of 
Thucydidcs apply only to his own day, and not to previous 
generations, that the Greeks were so degraded and de- 
bauched by this sophistic tampering with religion and 
morals, by this scepticism in philosophy, and by the rise of 
radicalism in politics, as to present from this time onward 
(430 B.C.) the symptoms of a decaying race. The Athenian 



92 GREEK EDUCATION. 

State, in particular, is supposed to have lost its splendor 
and its seriousness, and to be now a mere raob-rule, far 
removed from the democracy, tempered with despotism, 
which made it so great under Pericles. This view, which 
is strongly urged, for example, in Curtins's " History of 
Greece," is based altogether on the complaints of Plato 
and Aristophanes, and the impression produced by the his- 
tory of the aristocratic Thucydides, by Xenophon, and by 
the plays of Euripides. This is not the place to refute the 
theory generally, as has been done by Grote, who shows 
that never was the Athenian democracy so enlio-htened and 
moderate in policy as in the period after the close of the 
great war (403 b.c). But in the particular department be- 
fore us, that of education, we have already seen that this pe- 
riod after the Peloponnesian war is exactly the period when 
the sophistic higher education began to be discarded as su- 
perficial and even morally questionable, and the task of train- 
ing the keener and more ambitious youth passed into the 
hands of greater specialists — either philosophers like Plato 
and his followers, or rhetoricians like Isocrates and Anti- 
phon. Socrates forms the connecting link between the 
Sophists and the philosophic schools. Isocrates is hardly 
such a link, though he professes to be the philosopher in 
the guise of a rhetorician. Though he inveighed against 
his rivals the Sophists, he is hardly to be distinguished 
from them save in his being fixed at Athens, in his avoid- 
ance of displays (from natural inability rather than from 
choice), and in his declared conservatism in religion and 
politics, as contrasted with their scepticism. It is not just 
that the eminent respectability of Isocrates personally 
should be urged as another difference, when we adopt the 
fair view of the high characters of the leading Sophists. 



GREEK EDUCATION. 93 

Isocrates, whose views are fortunately preserved in his own 
very diffuse advocacy of them, was strictly a university 
teacher ; and so well recognized was this that a 'pupil of 
Isocrates meant sometliing-44k@~-04:ir - AvB. Oxon. For he 
had a regular course, and charged a considerable fee for 
his lessons. His pupils came from all parts of Greece, and 
stayed with him a considerable time. Moreover, he could 
boast that the most famous public men had been edu- 
cated by him, and owned his influence in after-days. This 
higher education he called philosophy, and he only dif- 
fered from other professed Sophists (he says) in the mod- 
esty of his promises, and his distinct admission that he 
undertook merely to improve natural talent, not to change 
a stupid and ignorant youth into a man of acuteness and 
power. 

§ 58. There is an interesting passage in the speech in 
vindication of his life,^ which gives so clear a view of the 
prevailing opinions about higher education at Athens that 
I will transcribe it freely : 

" The ordinary attacks made upon us are of two kinds. 
Some say that going to the Sophists for education is mere 
arrant imposture ; never has there been any system of 
training discovered by which a man can become abler in 
speech or wiser in deed, since all who excel in these re- 
spects differ by nature from the rest of mankind. The 
other objectors concede that those who submit to this 
training become indeed abler, but in a bad sense, and cou- 
pled with moral loss ; for when they gain power, they use 
it to injure their neighbors. I will now refute both these 
objections. 

" First, let us consider the absurdity of those who decry 
1 Hipi ai/Tid6(Tt(i)Q, p. 98 sq. 



94: GEEEK EDUCATION. 

all higher education. They revile it, indeed, as worth 
nothing, and mere deceit and imposture, but yet demand 
from us that our pupils, as soon as they come, should show 
a complete change, that after a few days' intercourse with 
us they should appear better in discourse and abler than 
their elders in age and experience; but if they stay one 
whole year, they should all be perfect orators — the idle as 
well as the diligent, the commonplace as well as the gifted. 
This they expect from us, though we never have made 
such promises, and though it contradicts the analogy of all 
other kinds of training, in which results are acquired with 
difficulty, and each with a various measure of success, so 
that some two or three only out of all the schools of all 
kinds turn out thoroughly proficient, while the rest remain 
mere average amateurs. Accordingly, the objectors are 
silly enough to demand from a training, which they call 
unreal, an influence unknown in the recognized instruction 
of all arts and sciences ! Our teaching, then, is discredited 
for accomplishing exactly what the other arts do. For 
which of you does not know that many of those put un- 
der the Sophists were not imposed upon, as is alleged, but 
have become, some of them, real experts in public life, 
others able instructors of youth, and even those who chose 
to remain in private life more polished in manners than 
they had been, and more accurate critics of arguments as 
well as of most ordinary things ? 

" How, then, can a pursuit be fairly despised which has 
produced such results ? for do not all men confess this, that 
those are to be esteemed the most thoroughly versed in 
their art or handicraft who can make their apprentices as 
good workmen as themselves ? Now, in philosophy this 
very thing has happened. For as many as happened on a 



GKEEK EDUCATION. 95 

genuine and sensible guide will be found to have such a 
family likeness in their way of expressing themselves that 
any one can tell they have come from the same trainer. 
This similarity of type is conclusive evidence of the method 
and system to which they have been subjected.' So, too, 
any of you could mention fellow-pupils Avho, as children, 
were the most ignorant of their fellows, but as they ad- 
vanced in age became far superior in good sense and in 
eloquence to those once far ahead of them." 

The orator goes on, with his usual elegant diffuseness, 
to make many other developments of the same leading 
idea, all of which might be used with hardly a word of 
change by any one defending our university education 
against the vulgar objectors who think that vast sums of 
time and money are spent upon it, with little or no result. 
Nor is the good which he does claim for his higher educa- 
tion anything different from what our universities could 
claim, apart from the material good of prizes and degrees. 

§ 59. The peculiar position of Isocrates was that of op- 
position to both Sophists and philosophers, and yet of 
likeness to both. He joined the Sophists in urging scep- 
tical objections to the subtle theories of the metaphysi- 
cians, and in commenting upon the small outcome of their 
elaborate speculations. He joined the philosophers in at- 
tacking the boastful claims of the Sophists, who pretended 
to teach everything. But he joined with the more prac- 
tical side in putting a training in rhetoric — a training in 
style — above everything. There were many reasons why 
this should be the case with higher education at Athens. 
In an age when books were scarce, and a reading public 
small ; when the power of publicism only existed for poets, 
and when all State affairs were settled by discussion either 



96 GKEEK EDUCATION. 

in the assembly or in private meetings — in such a society 
a power of clear and elegant utterance was the highest 
and best outcome of education. Nor could any man then 
be considered educated who lacked that power, just as 
nowadays no man is called educated w'ho cannot write 
correct English ; and, furthermore, the writing of elegant 
English is justly accounted to indicate a thorough and 
general culture. For we are such severe judges in this 
matter, everybody thinks himself in this so well able to 
appreciate beauty and pick out defects, that a man who 
can pass through the fire of criticism unscathed must in- 
deed be equipped with no ordinary preparation, and may 
be pronounced a really cultivated man. This will explain 
to us the enormous importance of rhetoric in Isocrates' 
system — an importance, perhaps, enhanced by his feel- 
ing that here he was really able to do great and unique 
service. He evidently depended on natural mother wit 
to suggest ideas to his pupils ; he apparently assumed 
that they had learned the ordinary elements of culture at 
their primary schools. He trained them, so far as we know, 
in nothing but the careful arrangement of their materials, 
the smooth transition of their arguments, and the perfec- 
tion of their choice and collocation of words. In this 
matter of style, Isocrates may be regarded as not only the 
greatest master that ever lived, but as the father of the 
periodic or oratorical style in all the languages of Europe. 
Demosthenes, Cicero, St. John, Chrysostom, Massillon, Burke 
— all these immortal men have profited by the analysis of 
expression which, through Isocrates, first formed Greek 
prose, and through it the borrowed graces of those who 
followed Greek models. 

§ 60. To enter into a closer description of this system 



GREEK EDUCATION. 97 

would not be to discuss education, but rhetoric, and we 
must refer the reader to treatises on that subject. We 
need only here call attention to the intense studiedness of 
Greek eloquence, and how they attained their perfection 
in prose — not by those violations of propriety which now 
please our sated taste, and which, when violent enough, as 
in the case of Carlyle, even pass for thoughts, and are to 
many the index of deep originality in something or other 
— but by a close and perpetual adherence to rules, often 
of a trivial, generally of a minute kind. 

It is very curious for us moderns to read the details of 
these things in the old rhetoricians. There is not an ap- 
parent touch of nature — a word emphatically repeated, a 
sudden break off, an angry burst, even a donH you see? or 
a by Jove! or a dear me! — in a Greek oration which was 
not noted as a figure of diction, or a figure of thought, 
and brought under the discipline of rules. We are even 
told that Demosthenes composed his prose in rhythm, and 
avoided the use of more than two short syllables together. 
Isocrates certainly made the law against hiatus — against 
closing a word and beginning the next with vowels — a law 
adopted by all the prose writers of his age. Thus the 
formal education in rhetoric must have been no light task 
for the pupils of Isocrates and the other rhetors, and writ- 
ing or speaking good Greek a far stricter and more difficult 
thing than writing English which will pass muster with 
the critics. 

§ 61. Still, there is room for surprise that the matter of 
higher education, the ideas to be acquired, should have 
been introduced indirectly under the guise of preparation 
for public speaking. No doubt, this was an artificial and 
unnatural order of things. To subordinate the matter of 



98 GREEK EDUCATION. 

knowledge to the form is always a mistake. But we may 
at least conceive the position of Isocrates' pupils if we 
compare it with that of the popular preachers, so powerful 
a generation ago, and even now playing no unimportant 
part in society. I have known more than one of these 
eminent men who educated themselves with great care gen- 
erally, and in all directions, for the purpose of supplying 
themselves with matter for their discourses. And this is 
very well-meant, legitimate, and honest education, though 
perverted in order, and, like that of Isocrates, not likely to 
lead to really deep and thorough knowledge. We are told 
that in the present day there are people who read all kinds 
of books for the purpose of solving double acrostics, and I 
have heard men of intelligence advocate this foolish kind 
of riddles as promoting general education ! 

Thus the school of Isocrates stood side by side, and in 
rivalry, with the schools of Plato and' Aristotle, as one in 
which elegance of form, and a superficial but graceful cult- 
ure, was given to the higher youth, instead of the exact 
science and metaphysic which unfitted men for public life. 
It was a contrast somewhat like the Oxford and Cam- 
bridge type in England. Isocrates' own failure as a poli- 
tician, and the little influence which his open letters on 
politics attained, made the wiser portion of men drift away 
still further from the sophistic aspect of his teaching, from 
the mixture of philosophy and politics with rhetoric ; and 
so they again subdivided their training into strictly rhetor- 
ical, such as had already been begun by Lysias and was 
carried out by Isaeus, and the philosophical, for which an 
increasing number of schools now offered themselves. As 
the political power of Greece decayed, and its literary and 
artistic splendor became universally recognized, Athens 



GREEK EDUCATION. 99 

became an educational centre, to which youths from all 
parts of the civilized world flocked for their training. 
This later history of Greek culture will occupy us in our 
last chapter. But we must first give a brief account of the 
deeper theories of State education which Plato and Aris- 
totle have left us, in contrast to the shallow popularity of 
Isocratcs. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE GREEK THEORISTS ON EDUCATION — PLATO AND ARIS- 
TOTLE. 

§ 62. It is usual in books on Greek education to give a 
very large space to the discussion of the "Kepublic" and 
" Laws " of Plato and the " Politics " of Aristotle, because 
they contain elaborate and systematic recommendations as 
to the training of youth. But the states of both philoso- 
phers are ideal, Aristotle's not less than Plato's ; and, though 
the educational portion of Aristotle's work seems fragmen- 
tary and unfinished, we cannot hold that any further devel- 
opments would have brought it within the range of practical 
politics. Plato's notions were confessedly theoretical, and 
are discussed as such by all his commentators; but some 
scholars have siven themselves endless trouble to find out 
how much of his system, especially in the tamer and less 
extravagant " Laws," was borrowed from real life, and from 
actual states, as opposed to the creations of his own fancy. 
But in nearly every detail the distinction is purely conject- 
ural. It is really for want of positive evidence that these 



100 GEEEK EDUCATION. 

theories Lave assumed sucTi undue importance. To the 
philosophical theorist and the educational reformer the 
speculations of such splendid intellects in the early post- 
meridian of the glorious day of Greece must ever be most 
attractive and suggestive ; but it is idle to transfer to a prac- 
tical book, or to an historical account, what has never been 
realized.^ These speculations, however, may fairly find a 
limited space here as showing what general effect the prac- 
tical education already described had produced upon the 
most advanced thinkers of the day. 

Unfortunately, we have here again only the aristocratic 
side, and that which would assert the State to be para- 
mount and all-interfering through individual and private 
life. If we had the speculations of Lycophron and his 
school, who held, with truly democratical instinct, that laws 
were only useful to repress crime, and that the rest of the 
citizen's life was to be left free and uncontrolled, our no- 
tions about the theories of Greek education might be con- 
siderably modified. But, on the other hand, we have pre- 
served to us the Hellene of the Hellenes ; the school of Ly- 
cophron might only have recommended to us what we know 
by practical experience in modern society. 

From the very outset Plato and Aristotle adopt quite 
definite principles. They assume that the State is to inter- 
fere everywhere and control the whole life of man. Thus 
the splendid Athenian democracy in which Plato lived had 
no power to wean him from his somewhat narrow preju- 
dices. He despised the goods he possessed, and longed for 
a Spartan ideal, though its defects were plain enough be- 

^ Few people have ever heard of the attempt to found a Plato- 
nopolis in Ita}y in the Renaissance times. 



GREEK EDrCATION. 101 

fore Hs eyes.' Still worse, the wide vista opened by Alex- 
ander into a larger fusion of ideas, and into widely various 
forms of society, had no power to emancipate the intellect 
of Aristotle from its ingrained Hellenic narrowness. It is 
necessary to make this strong protest at the outset, on ac- 
count of the chorus of admiration sung by the pedants and 
pedagogues of modern days over these thoroughly unprac- 
tical and retrograde theories. One fact will speak volumes 
to the modern reader. Both of them look upon a small 
number of citizens, and, indeed, a small limit of territory, 
as essential to their schemes, no accurate or perpetual 
supervision by State police and direction being possible 
either in a great city or a large territory.^ This will in it- 
self show how antiquated they must have seemed even in 
the next century, when the Greeks woke to the ambition 
of ruling over kingdoms in the East. 

§ 63. And yet there were some points on which these 
thinkers, especially Plato, were far more thoroughgoing 
than we are, chiefly from a total absence of that sentiment 
or sentimentality which infects modern life. For Plato, 
both in the "Republic" and the "Laws," insists that edu- 
cation will be of little avail if children are brought into the 

^ Of course, he saw and admitted these defects ; but it is obvious 
that he thought them only defects of detail, which could be remedied 
by better arrangement ; whereas the Athenian democracy appeared 
to him radically unsound. And yet could Sparta ever have produced 
such a splendid passage of history as the conduct of the Athenian 
array at Samos when the news came (411 B.C.) that the constitution 
of their city had been overthrown and an oligarchy established ? Let 
the reader consult Grote's chapter on this. 

^ Plato even insists upon a fixed number, 11,080 men and the same 
number of women, all excess being guarded against either by ex- 
posing of infants or transporting adults into colonies. 



102 GEEEK EDUCATION. 

world deformed in body and warpsd in mind by the bad 
physical and mental condition of their parents. On some 
of these cases Greek society was agreed with him. In 
most states a deformed child was exposed either to die or 
to be picked up by some one who might run the risk of 
bringing it up to make a household slave.* For in most 
states, and certainly at Sparta, it would have been held a 
crime to propagate hereditary disease ; and men were spared 
the disgusting spectacle of the scrofulous or deaf-and-dumb 
heir to a great name being courted in matrimony to per- 
petuate the miseries or the vices of his progenitors. 

But Plato went further, and held that the production of 
the most important animal, man, should be regulated with 
even more care than that of the lower animals, in which 
such striking results have been obtained by artificial se- 
lection. He therefore recommended, in his ideal State, 
not community of wives — Heaven forbid that we should 
follow Aristotle in repeating this gross libel ! — but a careful 
State selection of suitable pairs, and their solemn union, 
under the guise of a direction from Providence by an 
appeal to the lot. These marriages were to take place at 
a fixed season, and all the children born of them within 

^ The critics have shown that Plato gradually softened his recom- 
mendations on this point. In the " Timgeus " he speaks as if he had 
never recommended exposal, but only a relegation of the children of 
unhealthy parents into his third grade of society. In the "Laws" 
(if it be, indeed, his work) he lets the whole matter drop, though it 
was to be expected that he should discuss it. Whether this arose 
from a gradual advance of humanity in Plato himself, or from the 
adverse ciiticisra of the day, we cannot tell. The Gemian critics 
(Zeller, Susemihl, etc.) hold the former; I am disposed to the latter, 
even though his successor, Aristotle, as they remark, is even more in- 
human. 



GEEEK EDUCATION. 103 

the year to be regarded the common children of all : here 
the word community may fairly apply. He has nowhere 
told us whether in successive years the same parents were 
to remain united, and hence we do not know whether his 
marriages were meant to be temporary or not. I fancy 
the point was of little importance to him. If the offspring 
turned out well, there would be no change ; if badly, of 
course the guardians of the State would not sanction the 
continuance of an unwholesome union. Thus, though 
Plato was willing to allow sentiment its sentimental place, 
and to bring forward the decision of the rulers of the State 
as the will of Providence, marriages professedly arranged 
in heaven were to be permitted only with a strict view to 
the improvement of the race. 

The objection that such an arrangement would destroy 
the sanctity and influence of the family, and thus abolish 
our most powerful engine of early education, was no ob- 
jection to Plato. He wished to abolish separate families, 
and rescue children from the tyranny, the indulgence, and 
incompetence of individual parents, so as to put them 
under State discipline. And the State was absolutely 
nothing but one huge family, as far as the higher classes 
were concerned. To us who live in large kingdoms, who 
know that the family gives the law for individuals in or- 
dinary life, and that schemes of public education cannot 
replace it, all systems which abolish the sanctity of the 
home are inadmissible. 

§ 64. No point in Plato's scheme excites more sympa- 
thy nowadays with advanced thinkers than that of equal- 
izing the sexes in education, and subjecting women to the 
same training and duties as men. For he held that, though 
nature had not made women as strong as men, and that 

8 



104: GKEEK EDUCATION. 

their important functions in the production of the race put 
them under some inconveniences and disabilities, there 
was, nevertheless, no reason to assume any permanent 
difference in kind. If such a theory is thought revolu- 
tionary by most people in modern society, what must it 
have been in the days and among the people of Plato's 
age ! Here, again, what guided him was an exaggerated 
estimate of the liberty and importance of Spartan women, 
who, when young, were encouraged to exercise in public ; 
and who, when married, maintained over their husbands an 
influence far exceeding that of women in other Greek 
households. But then we must not forget the small cult- 
ure of the men, their devotion to military training, and the 
consequent necessity for women to use their own judg- 
ment in the management of their homes. 

§ 65. On the other hand, if we may digress for a mo- 
ment on account of the interest and importance of the 
subject, there is no valid reason why the physical produc- 
tion of the race should not receive infinitely more attention 
than it does within the bounds of our present social ar- 
rangements. In the first place, though the sentimental 
reasons for marrying are still put in the foreground, and 
though at wedding speeches and in amatory correspond- 
ences some divine predestination, or the sentimental com- 
pulsion called falling in love, is assumed the only efficient 
cause of marriages, we know that many reasonable consid- 
erations intervene and are the real motives of action. These 
motives — the acquisition of wealth or position or connec- 
tion, the desire of home comforts and of a life independent 
of external amusements, a calm mutual respect — are com- 
monly enough confessed even by the very people who pa- 
rade sentimental reasons ; and whenever a marriage appears 



GREEK EDUCATION. 105 

suitable from rational considerations, no trouble is spared 
by match-makers to induce young people to imagine them- 
selves drawn together by some subtle and sentimental af- 
finity — like Plato's guardians, who were to pretend the 
providential lot as their guide. 

If, then, such be the case; if even now there are civil- 
ized countries and classes of people who openly profess 
prudential reasons as the best for marrying, it will only re- 
quire a better education of public opinion to enable men to 
advance to the position that the physical and mental vigor 
of the resulting children is a motive to be consciously con- 
sidered in the selection. We may first reach the stage of 
avoiding an hereditary taint as people now fly an infectious 
disease. Such avoidance would ultimately stamp out or re- 
duce to a minimum this evil, and the race would escape a 
great part of the direst and most hopeless of its physical 
miseries. Then the systematic and deliberate desire that 
there should be healthy children will discover many con- 
ditions now unknown, when so many of our unions are the 
result of chance or avarice, or, still worse, of passion. Men 
of science will begin to make observations on the differ- 
ence of physical antecedents which cause such curious dif- 
ferences in children of the same house. And the day will 
come when, from a body of such observations, valuable 
practical rules may be deduced. We may thus improve 
our race as the Spartans did in old Greece ; and they, we 
know, were perfectly successful in obtaining what they 
sought — a high average of physical strength and beauty. 

All this, we may hope, will only be the introduction to 
a far more important, but far more difficult, problem — the 
determining of the conditions which produce genius. There 
is no reason to doubt that these conditions are mainly tran- 



106 GEEEK EDUCATION. 

sient, for genius is no fixed heritage, the most splendid 
instances coming from obscure and ordinary parents. Nor 
does the mere combination of the suitable parents work its 
effect uniformly without other more limited conditions. For 
we find the great leaders of the world sometimes the only 
child, sometimes eldest, sometimes youngest, or in the mid- 
dle of a family of brothers and sisters as obscure as their 
parents. The careful observation, then, not only of the 
parents, but of the particular passage in their life which 
produced an intellectually splendid offspring, is one upon 
which we cannot expect light for a long time, and until 
people have become accustomed to regard the general im- 
provement of the race of far greater importance than they 
now do. If such results could be obtained even approxi- 
mately — if, even in one case out of ten, intellectual excel- 
lence could be produced as we reproduce physical perfec- 
tions — then, indeed, the perfectibility of mankind would no 
longer be a vague dream, but would show some signs of a 
partial fulfilment. 

Are we to hope that such an advance in ideas will take 
place in our own day? We have perhaps advanced be- 
yond tbe stage when men regard genius as distinctly 
heaven-born, and tbe direct gift of the gods, apart from any 
natural conditions. If it is indeed heaven-bom, it is now 
conceded to be such through the combination of natural 
causes. But, on the other hand, our best and most refined 
people will recoil with deep aversion from making a scien- 
tific analysis of such conditions ; they will exclaim that the 
possible advantages are as nothing compared with the des- 
ecration of that mystery which has been hallowed by the 
sacraments of the Church, and protected from profane in- 
y quiry by a cloud of delicate sentiment. To reduce the 



GREEK EDUCATION. 107 

holy estate of marriage to the deliberate and scientific pro- 
duction of conditioned offspring will destroy, say they, all 
the sanctity of the relation, and with it the purity and dig- 
nity of our homes. 

These weighty and respectable objections are to be met 
by observing that it would be idle and wrong to attempt 
any reform in opposition to the unanimous sentiment of 
the very people who alone could carry it out — our most 
sober and refined classes. Until this sentiment can be grad- 
ually changed by argument, and come to be looked on as a 
venerable and amiable superstition, nothing will be accom- 
plished. But it is a matter of history that the most re- 
spectable and hallowed sentiments, if irrational, can be 
gradually removed by a progress in what Mr. Lecky calls 
rationalism^ or intellectual enlightenment. We can even 
now point to the important fact, that in those countries 
and those ages where marriages had been confessedly ar- 
ranged from prudential reasons, they have not been less 
sacred, nor has home life been less pure, than where vague 
and irrational sentiments have been brought into the fore- 
ground. The lower-class Irish are as faithful and happy in 
their homes, and the marriage-tie is as sacred and honored 
as it is anywhere in the world ; and yet among them a love- 
match is rare. It is a matter of cows and of pigs, of the 
succession to a farm — nay, often of arrangement by the 
landlord for reasons of his own ; and yet these marriages 
are as happy and as pure as if they had been the outcome 
of a great mutual passion. The same thing may be said 
of married life in the country parts of France, where a 
thrifty and provident race accommodate their unions to 
their circumstances, and leave the extravagances of great 
passion to poets and Parisians. 



lOS GEEEK EDUCATION. 

The history of Greece offers a more notable instance. If 
we ask where in Greece the home enjoyed the greatest 
honor and sanctity, where the house-mother stood highest 
in reverence and social importance, and where violations 
of fidelity were rarest, no one would hesitate to answer, At 
Sparta. Yet at Sparta all the sentiment, all the delicacy, 
of the marriage-tie was sacrificed to the duty of producing 
healthy children for the State. Plutarch tells us of a state 
of things which modern people would think wholly sub- 
versive of all purity — of old men ceding their rights of 
temporary unions and exchanges for the sake of desira- 
ble offspring. The Spartan men and women were not 
wanting in sentiment about marriage, in advocating the 
honor and sanctity of the marriage-tie ; but their sentiment 
led them to regard a fine offspring as the noblest outcome 
of marriage, and one to which all other considerations were 
secondary. Hence it was in accordance with their senti- 
ment that they adopted the same kind of precautions as 
regards physical perfection which a later and wiser age 
may adopt as regards intellectual and moral perfection. 

This possibility of improving intellect by careful selec- 
tion was beyond Plato's vision ; he only thought of phys- 
ical qualities in the arrangement of his unions. But it is 
one of the most remarkable points in his exclusive and aris- 
tocratic society that he makes provision for the adopting of 
any particularly bright child of the operative class among 
his guardians, so that they might benefit by the accident. 
The degradation of poor or unhealthy children of the 
higher class is also contemplated. 

His arrangement of the years of education is as follows : 
It is divided into three parts. Beginning with the learning 
of proper myths and tales, it proceeds to easy gymnastic, 



OEEEK EDUCATION. 109 

followed by music and poetry, with reading, writing, arith- 
metic, and some elementary mathematics, all of which occu- 
py from the seventh to the eighteenth year, and thus corre- 
spond to our schooling. Then comes military training up 
to the twentieth year — a division to which we, who have 
no conscription, have no analogy, as the Germans have. 
Next follows the second division of higher studies in pure 
and applied mathematics for ten years, and the third in 
metaphysic for five years. These are, of course, quite wide 
of any practical scheme, and are intended to form those 
philosophic rulers who will regard their whole life here as 
a preparation for a higher sphere. 

§ 66. His views on the details of music and gymnastic 
were not materially different from those of the practical 
educators which we have discussed, save that he proposes 
to train his guardian class with more detail and circum- 
stance than were possible for any ordinary public. 

He is unpractical, and even absurd, in his curious pru- 
dery about the tales and legends which children are to 
learn. He objects to Homer, to the tragedies, still more 
to the comedies, and, no doubt, to the folk-lore of the day, 
as inculcating base and immoral views of the gods and 
their relations to men. Fairy tales are always to represent 
God as one and as perfectly good. He even goes so far — 
but here he can hardly be in earnest — as to recommend 
that children shall learn by heart his laws instead of poetry 
and myths 1 ^ Throughout all his remarks on this subject, 
he evidently ignores the culture of the imagination as such, 
which we recognize as so important that we even tolerate 
or overlook immoralities or manifest fictions in aiming at 

^ This is in the " Laws," of which the genuineness is not without 
doubt. 



110 GKEEK EDUCATION. 

this kind of amusement and culture of children. Indeed, 
it is certain that when children are taught fairy tales as 
such, the immoral acts of real life, such as robbery and 
murder, are only accessories to the imaginary life, in which 
there is generally some rude justice. 

Even apart from this particular question, we find all 
through Plato's theory of education a very mischievous dis- 
like of any liberty of opinion, or liberty of life, in the youth 
of his State. He goes so far in the " Laws " as to make 
heresy of opinion penal, and to punish with imprisonment 
those who will not conform to the doctrines of the law- 
giver. If there be anything which would tempt us to reject 
the " Laws," as not the genuine work of Socrates' disciple, 
it is this strange narrowness of view, which makes Grote 
argue that the actual Athens of Plato's day was superior 
to the ideal he constructed. But doctrinaires of all ages 
hate human liberty. Nor do the Greeks ever seem to have 
been forced by the pressure of circumstances to mark off 
the close of formal education by a fixed period, like our 
graduation at a university, when the young man is expected 
to strike out into the world and henceforth educate him- 
self in practical life. 

§ 67. The educational book of Aristotle's "Politics" 
(VII. in the now received order) is a mere fragment, which 
suggests many problems, and solves but few. Even with 
the help of some important corrections from the " Ethics," 
we find it the narrow and old-fashioned scheme of a pedant 
Greek, written with admiration for the artificial discipline 
of Sparta, and unable to understand even the far more 
splendid Hellenic ideal sketched by Thucydides in his 
speech of Pericles. We know, however, from the " Ethics" 
that he felt the essential importance of family ties between 



GREEK EDUCATION. Ill 

husband and wife, between parents and cliildren. Hence 
he rejects Plato's proposal of abolishing the family, and 
insists that the ideal State must consist of households in 
the strict sense. But, on the other hand, he quite agrees 
with Plato's view that the social and moral aspects of mar- 
riage are by no means inconsistent with a strict supervision 
of the producing of healthy children by the State. He 
foreshadowed the state of things anticipated above, when 
husband and wife will still feel the deep sanctity and thor- 
ough loyalty of their relation, and yet not leave to mere 
accident the most important product, nay, the only product, 
so far as the State is concerned, of their union. He is 
just as careful as Plato in recommending care of unborn 
children by attention to their mothers' air and exercise. 
He is still more ruthless in advocating the destruction, 
either before or after birth, of illegitimate offspring. Nei- 
ther can he, any more than Plato, imagine an ideal state 
capable of such expansion as to contain a great people, 
nor can he dispense with disabilities for most of its mem- 
bers, such as slaves and operatives. 

He does not contemplate the very long and elaborate 
after-training of Plato's guardians, for he does not con- 
ceive this world as a preparation for another, but as an end 
in itself. And it is probably for this reason that he is so 
superior to Plato in analyzing the function of refined 
recreation, and the ennoblement of leisure by aesthetic 
pleasures. Thus he sees that music is to be utilized as a 
recreation for youth, as well as for a moral engine of edu- 
cation. He has explained in his "Poetic" that dramatic 
poetry is not mere fiction, to be banished from the ideal 
State as teaching falsehood or depicting crime, but a rep- 
resentation of human life deeper and more philosophic 



112 GEEEK EDUCATION. 

than history, inasmucTi as history only widens the intellect, 
while the drama also purifies the emotions of the specta- 
tor. It may even be argued that history widens the in- 
tellect only so far as it is conceived as a drama — a develop- 
ment of human character — and not as a mere recitation of 
facts. 

While he does not enounce so clearly as Plato that 
gymnastics are mainly a training for the character, he sets 
his face against that physical training which studies noth- 
ing but the development of muscle, on the ground that, 
if at all excessive, it defeats its own object by engendering 
an unhealthy state ; and that, as we cannot work the body 
and the mind together with any severity, it must generally 
coincide with ignorance or with an illiterate life. Even 
the Spartan military training, which was opposed by them 
to athletic training, falls under his censure. 

He will not concede, with Plato, the equality in kind of 
the sexes, but thinks the functions of women are distinct 
in kind from those of men, and therefore not to be per- 
fected by adopting the same training. Thus he is, on the 
whole, tamer and more conservative, but also less suggestive, 
than his great master. 

§ 68. The main value of his fragment on education is 
that it shows how thoroughly the subject had been discussed 
in his day. Thus, after determining that the civic side of 
the citizen is all-important, and that, therefore, all educa- 
tion must be public and the same for all, as in Sparta, he 
proceeds thus with his argument :^ " What, then, is educa- 
tion, and how are we to educate ? For there is as yet no 
agreement on the point ; all men are not of the same 
opinion as to what the young should learn either with a 

* vii. 2. 



GEEEK EDUCATION. 113 

view to perfection or to the best life ; nor is it agreed 
whether education is to aim at the development of the in- 
tellect or the moral character. Nay, more ; from the ordi- 
nary standpoint the matter is quite confused, and it is 
not clear to anybody whether we are to train in what 
leads to virtue, in what is useful for ordinary life, or in 
abstract science. All these alternatives have their advo- 
cates. Again, as regards what leads to virtue, there is no 
general consent, for since men do not agree in what they 
honor as such, of course they cannot agree about the train- 
ing to obtain it. As regards what is useful for life, it is 
obvious that there are certain indispensable things which 
must be taught, and it is equally clear that there are others 
which must not. All occupations are divided into those 
which a free man should practise and those which he 
should not, and, therefore, this affords us a limitation in 
the learning of useful arts." He goes on to show that no 
trade is gentlemanly if it injuriously affects the body, or 
enslaves the mind by being practised for hire. Even the 
fine arts, if studied in this way, or professionally, are to 
liim an unworthy occupation, and are only to be pursued 
in youth as a recreation or aesthetic training ; so that in 
middle life men may be competent judges of such pro- 
ductions, and either better able to enjoy them (as in music), 
or less likely to be deceived (as in the purchase of works 
of art). Having applied these principles to athletics, 
about which he says little save in recommendation of mod- 
eration, and against any professional training, he turns to 
the question of music, on which we have already given the 
views which he held in common with the most serious 
Greek educatorfh On this subject, too, there was contro- 
versy. He has before him three theories : is it mere amuse- 



114 GEEEK EDUCATION. 

ment {-rraihia), or an engine of education {waideia.), or an 

sesthetic pleasure (^taywy>/) ? ^ Perhaps we have dwelt too 

1 viii. 5, §§ 3-10: Hepl de fxovcriKijg ivia fiev dirjiropriKafiev ry 
X6y(l} Kal TTporepov, KaXwg d' ex^i Kal vvv dva\a(56vTag avra Tvpoa- 
yayuv, 'iva ioaTTtp Ivdoacfiov ykvijrai toXq \6yoic, ovq dv tiq tiiroi 
d7ro(paiv6[isvo£ rrepi avTrjg. Ovte yap riva e^et ^vvajiiv, p^diov Trspl 
avTrjg dieXeiv, ovre. Tivog dti x«ptv fiarkx^iv avTrjg, Trorepov Traididg 
'dviKa Kal dvaTravceijjg, KoQaTrep vttvov Kal fiiOrjg ' ravra yap kuO' avrd 
fiev ovrk Tu)V (nrovdaiiov, aXX' rjdsa Kai ii/jia Travel fispifivav, Hg (priaiv 
'Evpnridrjg ' dib Kal TarTovcriv avrr}i> Kal xP^vrai Trdai TovToig ofioiojg 
olvqt Kal fisOy Kal [xovaiKy' TiQkaui Se Kal Trjv bpxtiaiv ev Tovroig. H 
fidWov oiijTSOV Tzphg dpsrfjv tl teIvelv rrjv fiovcriKtjv, <jjg Suvafitvrjv, 
KaOdirep 17 yvfii'atTTiKrj to (xojixa ttolov ti TrapacrKsvai^H, Kal ttjv fiov- 
aiKrjv TO fjQog ttoiov tl ttolhv, WiZ,ov(jav dvvacrQai x'^ipiLV opBCjg ' r/ 
rrpbg diayiijyfjv ti avpLfSaXXsTai Kal irpbg <pp6vr}rnv; Kal yap tovto 
TpiTov QsTsov Tuiv Eiprjfisviov. "Ort juiv ovi^ del Tovg vkovg firj Traidids 
svEKa Traideveiv, ovk ddiqXoV ov yap Trai^ovai fxavOdvovTeg' fierd 
XvTrrjg yap 17 fid9r](ng' dXXd fni]v ov8t diayojyrjv re Ttawlv dpfioTTei /cat 
Talg rfXiKiaig dwodidovai Toig Toiavraig ' ovOevl yap aTeXsT TrpoarjKU 
riXog. 'AXX' 'iaiog dv do^tLSv rj twv Traidojv OTTOvdt) Traididg eivai xdpiv 
dvSpdai ytvofievoig Kal TeXsKoOelaiv. 'AXX' tl tovt earl towvtov, rivog 
dv 'iveKa dsoi jxavQdvHV avTovg, dXXd firj, KaQdirep 01 tS)V Hepcriiiv Kai 
Mrjdujv (3acnXelg, di dXXiov avTO ttoiovvtmv fiETaXafifSdveiv TTJg rjSovrjg 
Kal TTJg fia9r)(T£(jjg ; Kal yap dvayKaXov ^'iXtiov direpydi^EaOai TOvg avTO 
TOVTO TTETTOirinivovg tpyov Kal tex^W '^'^'^ tooovtov xpovov ettiixeXov- 
fisvojv, ocTov irpbg fid9i](Tiv fiovov. Ei dt SeT Ta roiavTa ^Laitovtlv 
avTovg, Kai TTEpl ttjv tS)V '6i\/o}v TrpayfiaTEiav avTOvg dv dioi irapa- 
<TKEvdZ,eiv ' dXX' droTrov. Tijv S' avTTjv aTropiav exei Kal ti SvvaTai 
Ta i]Qri fSeXTiio iroieiv ' Tavra yap H dtX jxavQdvtiv avrovg dXX' ovx 
STtptov aKovovTag opOaig re x^^P^^^ '^^'^ ^vvaaOai Kpiveiv ; wairep ot 
AaKujveg ' tKeivoi yap ov fiavQavovTEg ofiojg dvvavTai KpivEiv 6p9ojg, wg 
<paai, Ta xPW'd Kal Ta fit) ^pTjora twv p,tXaiv. 'O d' avTbg Xoyog Kav 
el irpbg Evrjfiepiav, Kal diayojyi^v lXEv9spiov ^pTjcrreov avTy ' ti yap 
SeI nav9dvEiv avTovg, dXX' ovx ETEputv xpitiiikvuyv diroXavEiv ; ^KOireiv 
d' i^tan ttjv v7r6X7]xpiv ijv exofiev irEpl tuiv 9Eiov ' 

ov [pt] yap b Ztvg avTbg dtidEi Kai KiBapi^ei 



GEEEK EDUCATION". 115 

long on these theories, but it seemed desirable to give the 
reader the locus dassicus on the Hellenic theory of music, 
which was discussed above (§ 43), and which, in spite of 
all our studies of Greek life, is still quite strange and in- 
credible to modern theorists in education. 

§ 69. There is yet another scheme of education left us 
by the classical age of Greece, Xenophon's " Education of 
Cyrus," which, in the form of a very tedious novel on the 
life of the Persian king, gives a theory of the education of 
a prince and his surroundings which may deserve a very 
few words in concluding this chapter.^ He shares with 
Plato and Aristotle the belief that private education, with 
mere prohibitive laws to guide the citizen, is quite insuffi- 
cient. All the theorists were agreed that there must be 
one public education, and they imagined that crime would 
be to a great extent precluded by such effective training. 

Xenophon, dividing his period of education into boy- 
hood up to sixteen, and youth {e(pr]l3eia) up to twenty-six, 
provides a regular public - school education for the boys, 
keeping them all together in a sort of polity of their own, 
where their teaching is performed by special State masters, 
and their quarrels and delinquencies settled by tribunals of 
their own. To the elder youth is assigned all the police 
and patrol duty, as well as the accompanying of the king 
in hunting, especially of beasts of prey. This sort of ex- 
ercise Xenophon had learned to know in the East, and he 
recognized its superiority over ordinary gymnastics. But 

toIq Tcoiijrali^' aWa kul ^avavaovQ koXovi-Isv rovg toiovtovq, Kai to 
TrpaTTHv oi'ic dvcpog [jd) fiEBvovrog ^ Tcai^ovTog. 

^ The second chapter of his first book gives a general description 
of the education among the Persians, which is, of course, a fancy 
sketch, accommodated to his own theories. 



116 GREEK EDUCATION. 

the musical education, on whicli Plato and Aristotle lay 
sucli stress, he omits altogether, without giving his reasons. 
Perhaps he found from experience that the great Aryan 
nobles were men of refinement, and understood the har- 
mony of life no less than the more theoretical Greeks. He 
also differs from them in alone recognizing the importance 
of a system which will control not one limited city, but an 
empire of various peoples and languages. Yet his educa- 
tion is, in consequence, only the expensive and exclusive 
training of a dominant aristocracy, and is not supposed to be 
compulsory for the ordinary citizen. In his State all high- 
er official position is only to be attained by this training. 

There are no other ideas in the scheme which make it 
worthy of any special consideration. The Spartan system 
blinded the vision of all these speculators, and kept them 
from understanding the true character of a free and various 
development of individual genius. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE GROWTH OF SYSTEMATIC HIGHER EDUCATION. UNI- 
VERSITY LIFE AT ATHENS. 

§ 70. It has been stated in the foregoing chapters that 
during the earlier or strictly classical period the Greeks 
never thought of endowing or regulating higher education. 
The careful system of training at Sparta, promoted and con- 
trolled by the State, hardly included even primary education. 
The police regulations alluded to at Athens only concerned 
details of management in private schools, and only primary 



GREEK EDUCATION. 117 

schools, which were worked by masters self-appointed and 
supported by the demand for them or their popularity in 
their district. Nowhere do we find anything approaching 
to a State endowment or regulation of university education. 
In fact, the want of such higher education was only felt 
when the Greek mind began to turn inwards upon itself 
after its extraordinary expansion in the Persian wars. And 
then the first want was supplied by voluntary efforts — by 
the Sophists who wandered from town to town, citizens of 
no fixed State, teachers in complete independence of all State 
direction. Indeed, their avoidance of political duties and 
responsibilities often brought them into suspicion, oftener 
into contempt. 

Socrates and Plato brought against them two other ob- 
jections — the one serious and capital, the other trivial and 
absurd ; and yet it was the latter which told with the pub- 
lic. The former objection was that of superficiality and 
boastful assumption ; they professed, within a short time, to 
teach all that was needful in science and literature, in phi- 
losophy and politics. And here the deeper thinking of pro- 
fessed philosophers superseded them, though they had not 
been either useless or contemptible in their day. The sec- 
ond objection reminds us strongly of the prejudice once 
felt against taking interest for money — all such profit be- 
ing regarded as usury in the worst sense of the term. It 
was urged that the Sophists asked and received pay for 
spreading the truth, and for teaching what every honest 
man ought to communicate (if he were able) for nothing. 
But although it was all very well for the eccentric and ex- 
ceptional Socrates, for the wealthy Plato, to refuse all re- 
muneration, the theory that the Sophist was not a laborer 
worthy of his hire asserted that all higher education must 



118 GEEEK EDUCATION. 

be carried on by amateurs, and thus tended to destroy all 
systematic and widely diffused culture. 

§ '71. This narrow prejudice, therefore, did not resist 
the common -sense of the public when brought to bear 
upon it. We are assured that Plato, like Socrates, took no 
payment. Our authorities are silent about Aristotle, and 
it is hence inferred that he followed the same rule. But 
Speusippus, his successor in the school, is said to have de- 
manded regular fees. This had been the practice with all 
the rhetoricians who taught young men after their eman- 
cipation from school, and who followed the natural prece- 
dent of the Sophists. Such a practice was all the more 
reasonable, as the pupils in philosophical schools, even in 
Plato's, were divided into amateur pupils, who came for 
mere general training, and professional students, who meant 
to take up teaching for their livelihood, and who spent a 
long time in special studies. Thus pupils' fees were al- 
ways a possible, and became an actual, endowment for 
higher teaching. In the Sophists' days men complained 
that these fees were exorbitant, though perhaps not with 
justice. In later days we hear of large fees from rich pu- 
pils, but always as voluntary donations, and for the purpose 
of relieving poorer fellow -students. For the schools of 
philosophy began to be secured from difficulties by a sec- 
ond means of endowment — the donations of patrons and 
the bequests of pious founders. As regards these dona- 
tions by rich pupils, we hear from Philostratus ^ that a rich 
scholar, Damianus, gave to each of the Sophists Aristeides 
and Adrianos 10,000 drachmae, to supply poor students 
with free lectures. This gift, about £400 of our money, 
represents a far larger sum in relation to the then existing 
» Bioi (700. ii. 32, 2. 



GEEEK EDUCATION. 119 

conditions of wealth. One hundred draclimai were prob- 
ably considered an adequate fee for a complete course ; 
and if it be ti'ue that a popular teacher could often com- 
mand one hundred pupils, even though the course oceii- 
pied more than one year, the endowment was consider- 
able. 

The desire of procuring free education for poorer lads 
with literary tastes is, however, an interesting and perma- 
nent feature in the Greek mind. At the present moment . 
the University of Athens provides free education for every 
Greek, and is wholly supported by a State subsidy. This 
now unique provision brings to Athens an influx of young 
Greeks from all the Levant, from Turkish countries, from 
Egypt — nay, even from Italy. They support themselves as 
best they can, often by menial employments, provided they 
can keep their lecture hours free. Lodging together in the 
humblest apartments, they club their scanty earnings for 
the purchase of, a light and a text-book, which they use in 
common, the one sleeping till his fellow has done his work, 
and wakes him to hand him the fresh-trimmed lamp and 
well-worn manual. 

This state of things, which reminds us so strongly of 
the mediasval universities, and is inestimably honorable to 
a growing age of culture when the masses want leavening, 
may be driven to a dangerous excess when the educated 
classes become too numerous ; for it dissuades every am- 
bitious young man from agriculture and the commercial 
pursuits so necessary to a nation's welfare. And as this is 
the case in Greece now, so it was doubtless the case when, 
in the days of Hellenism, Athens offered philosophy at so^ 
cheap a rate to all the Greek-speaking world. The class of 
learned idlers who would not pursue any mercantile call- 

9 



120 GREEK EDUCATION. 

ing' increased throughoat Greece/ Altliougli, therefore, 
tlie condition of things at Oxford and Cambridge — which, 
in addition to their vast endowments, demands a heavy 
outlay from their alumni — is not to be defended, there is an 
opposite error, and one likely to do more mischief : it is 
the setting-up of the lower classes to seek university de- 
grees with a minimum of expense and trouble, and con- 
sequently a minimum of culture. This mistaken course, 
which now threatens the Irish people, in addition to all 
their other misfortunes, tends strongly to increase (as is 
the case in modern Greece) a dangerous class of social and 
political malcontents, who consider that their high educa- 
tion is not recognized, and that they have no scope for 
their literary or political talents.^ 

^ The picture of Athens given in the Acts of the Apostles (ch. 
xvii.) shows that tlie city was full of people cultivated in philosophy 
and letters, but indisposed to pursue any serious calling. They lived 
in the agora all day, as in a great club, looking out for gossip and 
news. If any one desires to see a modern parallel,! refer hira to the 
Hall and Library of the Four Courts in Dublin — the most agreeable 
place in the world to visit ; for there the bar of Ireland, many of 
them for want of briefs, occupy themselves with all the scandal of tho 
day. Nay, even those who are busy refresh themselves, in passing, with 
five minutes' talk, and are never too hurried to enjoy a good story 
when it is offered to tliem. There is even a great deal of real busi- 
ness done in this desultory and peripatetic way. Whether a new sys- 
tem of philosophy or a new religion would find a hearing is perhaps 
doubtful, and marks the difference between the old Greek and the 
modern idler. 

^ Thus, a critic might argue that the present ills of Ireland arise 
not only from general idleness and want of thrift, but from melan- 
choly ignorance of all scientific principles of agriculture, and from a 
total raisappreciation of the conditions of trading; for here, if any- 
where, honesty is the best policy ; but it is not obvious to the ignorant, 
especially if they be astute. These evils might be diminished by dif- 



GEEEK EDrCATION. 121 

§ 72. We turn to the endowments by bequest, which 
were the direct cause of the establishment of philosophical 
schools at Athens. This idea seems due to Plato, who ac- 
quired for his school a local habitation as well as a name. 
It is well known that from early times there were two gym- 
nasia (in the Greek sense) provided for the youth who had 
finished their schooling — that in the groves of the suburb 
called after the hero Academus, and that called the Kyno- 
sarges, near Mount Lycabettus. The latter was specially 
open to the sons of citizens by foreign wives. Thirdly, in 
Pericles' day was established the Lykeion, near the river 
Ilisos. They were all provided with water, shady walks 
and gardens, and were once among the main beauties of 
Athens and its neighborhood. 

The Academy became so identified with Plato's teach- 
ing that his pupils Antisthenes (the Cynic) and Aristotle 
settled beside or in the Kynosarges and Lykeion respec- 
tively, and were known by their locality till the pupils of 
Antisthenes removed to the frescoed portico {stoa) in 
Athens, and were thence called Stoics. Epicurus taught 
in his own garden in Athens. All these settlements were 
copied from Plato's idea. He apparently taught both in 
the public gymnasium and in a private possession close 
beside it; and in his will, preserved by Diogenes Laertius, 
he bequeaths his two pieces of land to Speusippus, thus 
designating him as his formal successor. His practice being 
followed, the title scholarch soon grew up for the head of 
the school, and the owner of a life interest in the liarpif^l] 
or locality devoted to the purpose. Each master was called 
the successor {dia^oxog) of his predecessor, and the succes- 

fusing agiicultuval and commercial schools througli the country, not 
by granting university degrees for a smattering in arts. 



122 GEKEK EDUCATION. 

sion of these heads of schools has been traced with more 
or less success all through the Hellenistic period. 

§ 73. This is, no doubt, the cause of the fixed and tradi- 
tional character of the philosophical schools at Athens, and 
one main reason why this city became in the Roman Em- 
pire, when original research had died out, the principal 
university of the old world. The successive scholarchs 
seem to have thought of nothing but the repeating and ex- 
pounding of the founder's views ; and it is mentioned as a 
special loss to the Peripatetic school that Aristotle's works 
were left away from the school, and travelled into the pos- 
session of Neleus to Scepsis in the Troad. Hence the 
scholarchs, instead of developing a new doctrine, were 
simply helpless, and only taught what they could remem- 
ber, or what had been preserved by fragments in the note- 
books of the school. The proper investment of the school 
property was also the scholarch's duty, and we hear that in 
the fourth century a.d., under Procl us, the Platonic endow- 
ment was worth more than one thousand pieces of gold an- 
nually. Suidas tells us^ " that from time to time pious pa- 
trons of learning bequeathed in their wills to the adherents 
of the school the means of living a life of philosophic 
leisure." This is very analogous to the bequests of pious 
founders in the Middle Ages, especially of those who had 
the far-seeing wisdom to free their endowments from the 
penalty of teaching — a humane and enlightened intention, 
now frustrated by the rage for turning universities into 
mere training establishments. 

The designating of a successor by will, or shortly before 
the scholarch's death, became the rule in the principal 
schools of rhetoric, except that at Athens election by the 
1 In his Lexicon, sab voc. Plato. 



GREEK EDUCATION. 123 

school came to take its place. So far as we know, this 
was first suggested by Lycon, Aristotle's third successor, if 
not by Theophrastus. But the will of Lycon, preserved by 
Diogenes, is express : " I bequeath the peripatos to my pu- 
pils Balon, Kallinos, etc., without condition. Let them ap- 
point whomsoever they think will be most zealous and best 
keep together the school. May the rest of the school 
stand by him, for my sake and that of the place." These 
words not only imply that there was a stafE of assistants, 
selected from favorite pupils who intended to make phi- 
losophy their profession, but is peculiarly interesting as 
naturally suggesting a competitive examination, without 
naming it, as the method of choice. In Lucian's " Eunuch," 
the appointment is described as an election by votes of the 
chief men,, after an examination of the candidate in his 
knowledge of, and faith in, the system. There were cases 
when the electing body was not the school, but the Areop- 
agus, or the council ; for the hatred and jealousy of the 
schools made an election from without safer. When the 
chief literary posts at Athens became salaried by the State, 
such interference was natural, and disputed elections were 
even referred to the emperor at Rome. 

§ 74. Eunapius tells us of an interesting dispute of this 
kind for the office of Sophist (the highest literary post at 
Athens) on the death of Julianus, 340 a.d., and its conse- 
quent vacation. Six candidates — four of them pupils of 
Julianus, and two other needy persons — were selected by 
common consent; the Roman proconsul was president 
of the electing court, and so violent was the canvassing 
that he was obliged to interfere and order people out of 
Athens. The candidates handed in essays and made set 
speeches. There were claqueurs ready with their prepared 



124: GKEEK EDUCATION. 

applause. Then tlie proconsul again cited them, and gave 
them a theme for an extempore speech. Five refused, say- 
ing they were not accustomed to pour out, but to think out, 
their orations. Prohseresius, a pupil of Julianus, alone 
took up the challenge, and, all applause being interdicted, 
maintained his reputation splendidly. Nevertheless, he did 
not then obtain the chair ; for his opponents secured in- 
fluential electors with dinners and presents, and, no doubt, 
the social talents of a Sophist in this chair were very im- 
portant. They took shameful ways of succeeding ; " but, 
indeed," says Eunapius, " you can hardly blame them for 
working their case as best they could." 

This interesting story belongs to later days, when the 
chairs of philosophy and rhetoric at Athens came under 
State support and control. In early days, up to the Chris- 
tian era, the schools were perfectly private, free, and inde- 
pendent of the State. We hear, indeed, of such decrees as 
that of the Thirty Tyrants forbidding rhetoric and philoso- 
phy to be taught. But though any ancient state, even a 
free democracy, would have thought itself quite justified in 
such interference for public reasons, there is no definite at- 
tempt at such a policy till the days of Theophrastus, when 
(about 316 B.C.) Sophocles, son of Amphicleides of Suni- 
ura, passed a law that no one should open a school of 
philosophy without the approval of the senate and people. 
There was a formal exodus of philosophic students, who 
only returned with Theophrastus, when Sophocles was con- 
victed under the law against illegal procedure {ypatpri irapa- 
vofjiijjv), and his law repealed. This attempt of Sophocles 
might have been defended from Plato's " Republic " and 
" Laws," where the philosopher distinctly recommends State 
control of education. But it was, no doubt, the antidemo- 



GREEK EDUCATION. 125 

cratic tone of the schools, especially of the Platonic school, 
which prompted this action, for we hear that Demosthenes' 
nephew, Demochares, and other democratic leaders, sup- 
ported Sophocles, on the special ground that Plato's school 
had supplied most of the later tyrants to Greece. 

The true way of controlling education had not yet dawn- 
ed upon the public men of Athens — the endowing of chairs, 
with a power of removal. We hear, indeed, gradually of 
small salaries for sophronistoe and other guardians of youth, 
but direct State patronage of teachers first meets us among 
the Egyptian and Pergamene successors of Alexander. 
Then the Roman emperors, as we shall presently see, ap- 
pointed regular professors. But all this took the form of 
honoring a great teacher, as states honored him with civic 
freedom, immunity from taxes, bronze statues, and the like. 
His special teaching was not criticised or directed from 
without. 

§ 75. The time came, however, when more than formal 
or irregular honors were paid to the teaching profession. 
The Roman emperors established chairs {Qpovoi) of theo- 
retical and practical rhetoric, and of the four sects of phi- 
losophy, the former of which they endowed with 10,000 
drachmae per annum each. The highest chair was entitled 
the Sophist's chair, that term having, after all, maintained 
its old respectability, and recovered from the obloquy 
thrown upon it by Socrates and Plato. There was even a 
subdivision of the Sophist's chair, a second chair being 
called the political chair. These appointments seem to 
have been the device of Hadrian, though L. Egnatius Lolli- 
anus of Ephesus was the first salaried occupant of the chair, 
and was appointed under Antoninus Pius. The same policy, 
carried out by Marcus Aurelius, gave immunity from taxes • 



126 GREEK EDUCATION. 

and civic duties to all the learned professions — physicians, 
philosophers, rhetoricians, and grammarians. Then the 
term drjjioirievetv {to be a public servant) ^ once applied to a 
public hangman or a dispensary doctor, now came to mean 
a public and salaried professor. 

The salaries -were paid in kind — five Roman modii of 
wheat per month — and were thus free from the great fluc- 
tuations in money values common in those days. The pu- 
pils' fees were paid in money, and were due on January 1 ; 
but we hear many complaints of irregularity in this re- 
spect. This was mainly caused by the ambition of the 
rival teachers to have their class-rooms filled, and hence 
their indulgence in the case of the poor and the procrasti- 
nating, who could not or would not pay, and were never- 
theless permitted to continue their studies. One hundred 
drachmae paid down seem to have been thought an average 
fee ; but great variations were allowed, and there was evi- 
dently no tariff, or any such credentials as our parchments 
to show that a man had attended his course, paid his fees 
regularly, and obtained what we call a degree. Libanius 
mentions an amusing case of a man sending with his son 
to Athens a donkey, by the sale of which the fees were to 
be paid. No doubt, the profits made by the greater chairs 
were considerable, and the sophist and rhetor, with their 
higher colleagues, represented Athens on state occasions 
as civic dignitaries. They were expected to go out to meet 
any very distinguished visitor, and address him with com- 
plimentary harangues ; they had to present themselves of- 
ficially every month to the proconsul at Corinth, presum- 
ably to report on the state of Athens. We hear that they 
obtained leave of absence only by special permission and 
with difficulty. In contrast to this importance and splen- 



GREEK EDUCATION. 127 

dor, we have a pitiable account in Libanius of the miseries 
of the rhetors at Antioch, who strove to keep up a respect- 
able appearance while they were persecuted with duns and 
creditors, and almost starved at home. 

§ 76. A great deal of obscurity still remains, not only 
concerning the exact number of salaried professors of 
sophistic and rhetoric, but concerning their relations to 
the crowd of assistants, recognized and unrecognized, which 
must have existed at the University of Athens. So clear 
was the policy of Hadrian, and still more of M. Aurelius, 
to make it the main seat of the world's learning, that all 
manner of students went thither to enjoy the various priv- 
ileges offered. The grand man, the Sophist, could not be 
expected to do tutor's or coaching work ; and as many lads 
came from the far East and West with little training, there 
must have been a considerable class of private teachers to 
help them on. This was also done by the. lad's pcedagogue, 
who came with him from home. But there appears to 
have been a licensed class of secondary professors, the Pri- 
vat-Docenten of the Germans, who enjoyed no salary, but- 
lived on the fees of pupils. It is not likely that the total 
number of these licensed lecturers in sophistic and rhetoric 
exceeded eight or ten ; the private tutors were probably 
very numerous. 

We naturally inquire how this State appointment to pro- 
fessorial chairs was consistent with the succession already 
described in the four philosophical schools. In these there 
was no formal change ; they were elected by a committee 
of recognized heads of each school. But gradually the in- 
fluence of the emperor made itself felt. The procurator, 
who came from Corinth to look after such matters, either 
influenced the nomination of the committee, or recommend- 



128 GEEEK EDUCATIOM". 



1 



ed the election of a particular candidate. Even in the case 
of the public chairs there was sometimes a competition, 
and often the emperor did not interfere with his lieutenant's 
arrangements. Herodes Atticus was almost omnipotent in 
his day in these appointments. Dismissals from the pub- 
lic chairs were very unusual, but distinctly asserted as the 
emperor's right. The Prohseresius above mentioned was 
dismissed by the Emperor Julian, because he appeared to be 
a Christian. 

§ 77. It is more interesting to turn to the peculiarities 
of life vi'hich bound together the young men at the Uni- 
versity of Athens, and the various customs which then, as 
now, gave a peculiar tone to the student's life. What is 
called the atmosphere of Oxford or Cambridge, of Dublin 
or Harvard, consists in a body of traditional customs main- 
tained by the peculiar conservatism of youth, which moulds 
every new-comer, and produces a certain type of character, 
and even a certain fixity of manners. It seems probable 
that the earliest Italian universities in the Middle Ages, 
which go back to the eleventh or twelfth century, acquired 
some of these traditions from the Greek universities of the 
decadence, and thus a direct filiation may be traced between 
the customs now to be described, as existing at Athens in 
the Hellenistic period, and those of modern Europe. But 
to investigate this obscure subject thoroughly would lead 
us far beyond our present limits. 

We hear that no one was allowed to attend lectures, at 
least in the fourth century a.d., without dressing in the 
scholar's short cloak {rpiftdyv) — in fact, our college gown ; 
and the right of wearing it was only obtained by leave of 
the Sophist. This in itself was a mark probably more 
universal than the gowns at Oxford and Cambridge, for we 



GREEK EDUCATION. 129 

have no evidence that Greek gentlemen, like the modern 
English, hated all official costumes.^ 

There was no arrangement for a daily commons of stu- 
dents; there were no college buildings, and the students 
lodged where they could, as they do in the foreign universi- 
ties, such as Gottingen or Leyden. But there were special 
dining societies in each of the four philosophic schools, 
meeting once a month or oftener, for which funds were 
bequeathed, and which were regarded as a special bond of 
union. Of course, simple fare and philosophical conversa- 
tion was the original plan : it degenerated into luxury and 
sumptuous feasting; for the dinners given by Lycon, when 
head of the Peripatetic school, lasted till the following 
morning. He entertained twenty at a time for the nomi- 
nal fee of nine obols, which was even remitted to poor 
scholars. This took place on the last day of the month. 
Epicurus, in his will, made special provision for a feast 
every twentieth of the month. The Stoics had three such 
clubs, called after scholarchs who probably were the found- 
ers. The intention of these feasts, which were more like 
Oxford gaudies than ordinary commons, was to bring mas- 
ters and pupils into closer relation, and this is found a true 
plan in all modern society. People seldom become inti- 
mate who do not dine together. 

1 All foreigners, on the contrary, seem to love official dress, whether 
military or not. I was once in Genoa during a regatta, when a crew of 
visitors from Spezia or Livorho used to walk about the streets in boating 
costume, with their oars over their shoulders, to the admiration of the 
Genoese. Imagine the Oxford eight, the day before the University 
race, sauntering along Piccadilly in this style! I recommend this 
case to the theorists who maintain that human nature is the same at 
all times and places. 



130 GSEEK EDUCATION. 

At Athens, too, tliere was no official tutorial discipline ;^ 
there were no compulsory chapels, or lectures, or fines ; and 
order seems to have been kept by the very republican ar- 
rangement of a senior prefect {apx(t>v), elected by the class 
every ten days. We are told that the professor, besides 
remonstrance, sometimes struck idle or stupid scholars; 
and Libanius talks of being " sent down" as a terrible dis- 
grace, involving serious consequences to the lad's parents, 
and even to his native town. Perhaps it may correspond 
to expulsion from our universities; but this must have 
been for the gravest crimes only. The pupils of any pro- 
fessor were merely known as his cii'cle {ol cnro, or Trspt, rivog) ; 
they were only his pupils or hearers in that they attend- 
ed his lectures. Indeed, they often designated him by a 
nickname public enough to have been transmitted in after- 
literature. 

§ 78. We find an unusual variety of terms,^ all trans- 
ferred from other combinations, to express the clubs or 
unions of students among themselves, and they are con- 
stantly mentioned in books and inscriptions of the second 
and third centuries a.d. They naturally grew out of the 
old separation of the ephebi into a separate class long be- 

^ The description by Libanius of the rhetor's duty, to receive the 
hxd from his parents, to advise him, and even to punish him for idle- 
ness, to acquaint the parents periodically of his progress, etc., re- 
minds us perfectly of the duties of a college tutor. But this was 
clearly a voluntary task, and generally undertaken not merely from 
duty towards the lad, but from a desire to be popular and to secure a 
large follov^^ing. 

'^ Xopog, QiaaoQ, avvodoQ (religious), cvvova'ia, Troifiviov, dy'tXr]. I 
see that Sievers, in his life of Libanius, understands dpx^t^v and %OjOoe 
of a council of professors ; but this is surely incorrect. Pie was prob- 
ably misled by finding so much power attributed to a mere student. 



GKEEK EDUCATION. 131 

fore university education was organized, or rather crystal- 
lized, into the shape we are now discussing. The presi- 
dents of these clubs were called choregi (also Kopvcpaloi and 
aK'piojMTai). Inscriptions tell us of similar private combi- 
nations among the ephebi in the second century a.d., in 
which names from the general lists are repeated under the 
separate heads of Heracleids and Theseids, two associations 
to be compared with the students' clubs at the Italian and 
German universities, which often bear the names of nations, 
thus pointing to their mediaeval origin. There is evidence 
of some peculiar importance, possibly of rivah-y, as regards 
the Theseids and Heracleids at Athens, and the German 
critics are probably right in suspecting a political bias to 
have been the true ground of difference. The constant re- 
lations of Heracles and Theseus in the legends and the re- 
ligion of Attica are well known ; the Temple of Theseus, 
still standing at Athens, is by many considered a Heraclei- 
on, and the deeds of Heracles are more conspicuously cel- 
ebrated than those of Theseus in its sculptured reliefs. 
Theseus was certainly raised by Attic legends into the po- 
sition of founder of the democracy, and the ideal of an 
ephebus, and as such he may have been contrasted to Her- 
acles, who was the ancestor of Doric nobility, and might 
be regarded as of aristocratic tendency. This conjecture 
has the merit of probability, though it has no basis beyond 
these general grounds. 

§ 79. When we come to later days, especially to the 
fourth century a.d., we hear much about the students' clubs 
from Philostratus, Eunapius, Libanius, and others. It is 
remarkable that they were not then formed on the national 
basis, as we may conceive the older Heracleids to have been 
Boeotian youths, severed from the Attic Theseids, or as we 



132 GREEK EDUCATION. 

could conceive Irish students associating themselves in an 
English university. They were rather suggested by the ri- 
valries of their teachers, originally of the separate philo- 
sophic schools, but aftervs^ards merely formed on the grounds 
of ambition and popularity. A crowded attendance at lect- 
ures was so anxiously desired that every kind of device 
was used by the rival professors to induce students to come 
to them. This evil became so apparent in its effects upon 
the students, who were flattered and courted by their mas- 
ters, that Libanius mentions a proposed agreement {avvdnk-r]) 
between the professors on the question, which was, how- 
ever, unsuccessful. Thus in the older University of Dub- 
lin the profits of college tutors were so great that a similar 
rivalry in popularity existed, and the dons are said to have 
studied unworthy arts to secure a full chamber. Such can- 
vassing has almost disappeared since the treaty, as Libanius 
calls it, of putting the pupils' fees into a common fund, of 
which the greater part is divided according to the tutor's 
standing, and only a small premium is allowed for the act- 
ual number of pupils. 

The constant jealousies and factions occasioned by this 
competition among professors were reproduced in the Ital- 
ian universities of the Renaissance period; indeed, all 
through the Middle Ages. Thus, according to Eunapius, 
the president of the club called ^Traprr] araKrog considered 
it part of his duty to bring his club in full force, and well 
armed, to the Peirseus, or even down to Sunium, in order 
to catch students coming from the East, green and fresh, 
and secure them for the professor he patronized. Rival 
clubs met on these errands, and had pitched battles worse 
than those of town and gown in England. Every attempt 
was made to secure lads, even before they left their homes. 



GREEK EDUCATION. 133 

Libanius tells us he came to Athens, having been already- 
canvassed at his home in Antioch to attend the rhetor Aris- 
todemus, but was seized by a club in the interest of Dio- 
phantus, and only let free with great difficulty, and after 
he had sworn allegiance to Diophantus. We hear of ev- 
ery sort of violence being committed by these students, in 
whose disputes the Roman governor at Corinth was some- 
times obliged to interfere. We hear of their debts and 
their poverty, their dissoluteness and idleness. But, of 
course, the diligent and orderly minority have left no trace 
behind, and we must take care to give no exaggerated 
weight to the noisy doings of the baser sort. Even toss- 
ing in a blanket (or carpet) was well known to them,^ and 
applied to unpopular teachers, probably of the obscurer 
sort, as may be seen from Libanius's oration On the Carpet, 
in which he lectures them on the subject. We do not 
hear of any scholarships, bursaries, or exhibitions intended 
to help indigent lads of ability. Indeed, this giving a lad 
money rewards for educating himself seems a very evil de- 
vice of modern times. To support a student with the bare 
necessaries of life, and give him free instruction, is a differ- 
ent thing, and this was the idea of the pious founders of 
scholarships. To repay him in part for an extravagant 
preparation by extravagant prizes is a very different notion, 
but now so diffused that its absurdity no longer strikes the 
public mind in England. 

§ 80. Gregory the Nazianzen tells us of comic ceremo- 
nies by which the freshman was initiated to his studies, 
and these practices were technically called reXerai, or ini- 
tiatory rites. These are to be compared to the teasing of 

^ Called by the Romans sagatio, and hence probably soldiers' horse- 
play, as sagum is a soldier's cloak. 



134 GEEEK EDUCATION. 

beginners known at tlie German universities under tlie 
name of deposition. At Athens the novice was brought 
by a band to the baths through the market-place. Then 
those in front began to push him back, and refuse to let 
him in, while those behind thrust him forward. After a 
rude struggle, probably intended to try his temper, he was 
let in, bathed, and thus formally admitted, receiving his 
trihon, or college gown. There was also some unknown 
ceremony in the theatre, called KyXitr-pai, of which the 
name only is preserved, from its being forbidden by law in 
693 A.D., and this by a Church synod in Constantinople. 
It was identified with other heathen practices and tradi- 
tions, and hence considered worthy of being threatened 
with excommunication. These late occurrences of student 
practices give rise to the suspicion that they may have been 
copied in the early school of Bologna. Perhaps the most 
curious allusion^ is to the fact that, after a certain standing, 
students w^ere by common consent excused from these fol- 
lies, as now in Germany a graduate at Leipzig or Gottin- 
gen, or a professor, would no more think of fighting a stu- 
dent's duel than an English gentleman w^ould ; while ev- 
ery younger man is compelled to do so by an iron custom 
amounting to the most absolute tyranny. 

The example of the Stoics, who taught in the city, was 
followed by other schools, after that the successive devas- 
tations of the neighborhood of Athens by Philip Y. of 
Macedon (200 B.C.), and by Sulla, had injured the gardens 
and groves of both Kynosarges, Academy, and Lykeion. 
We hear of the Ptolemeion and Biogeneion as the fashion- 
able places of resort, then Hadrian's gymnasium — all with- 
in the town, and all the gift of individual founders — the 
1 LibiiniuSj i. 17. 



GEEEK EDUCATION. 135 

Diogenes in question being a condottiere who commanded 
the second King Demetrius's troops in Attica, 225 b.c. 
There is some slight evidence that this man's gymnaBinm 
was used for beginners, and possibly they may even have 
resided there; for we hear that scholars often set up huts 
(tcaXvpia) near the house of their favorite teachers. There 
were libraries in connection with Ptolemy's and Hadrian's 
gymnasia. Indeed, it seems, in later days, that such was 
the danger of a riot if professors lectured in any public 
building, that they built private theatres for themselves, 
attached to their own houses, and elegantly appointed. In 
these we may be sure that their teaching took the form of 
a lecture, not of disputation or of catechising. This latter 
kind of lesson was very popular in Socrates and Plato's 
time ; but Aristotle already severed it from his regular dis- 
courses, and held -his philosophic conversations with his 
pupils v/alking in the Peripatos : hence the title of his 
school. 

§ 81. We only know now the names of those professors 
who lived for the world and for posterity, and strove to 
teach by publishing their works. In an age when original- 
ity was dead, and the highest ability consisted in the best 
commentary on Plato and Aristotle, this literary activity, 
once admired and praised, seems to us, for the most part, 
idle subtlety. Even in rhetoric all the laws and models 
were JBxed ; Longinus only shows us a modern and aesthet- 
ic appreciation of beauty in style, which we do not find in 
earlier rhetors. But, of all the scholarchs at Athens, none 
are now of the least consideration gave the heads of the 
Neo-Platonic school ; and even these were but followers of 
this strange, fascinating doctrine, already preached in Alex- 
andria and in Rome, which strove to give a new meaning 

10 



136 GREEK EDUCATION". 

to the metapliysic of tlie Academy, and accommodate it 
to the spiritual wants of earnest heathen, in the face of 
Christianity. 

But it is more than probable that, as in our own univer- 
sities, so at Athens, the best and most earnest of the teach- 
ers set themselves so exclusively to their task that they 
left nothing behind them except in the note-books of their 
classes. This sort of university teacher never earns any 
wider popularity than that of his college ; and yet there, 
and among those who have known his diligence, his pa- 
tience, and his power, he will always rank far higher than 
those who rush before the public from ambition, often 
with badly digested ideas. We shall, therefore, do well not 
to set down the philosophical teaching at Athens at the 
level of those tedious commentaries which the student will 
find collected in the later volumes* of Muliach's " Fragnnenta 
Philosophorum Grsecorum." 

§ 82. As regards the length of the course which the 
students were expected to attend, there are very varying 
statements. Five to eight years are mentioned, a period 
far too long for young gentlemen like Cicero's nephews, 
and probably only meant to apply to those who went for 
professional purposes. There were lads of tender age, 
sometimes under the care of a pcedagogue, and men of 
middle-age, waiting for the chance of a post. There seems 
to have been no limit of age, or any compulsion or rule as 
to the number of courses to be kept. Every student (or_ 
his parent) was supposed to select for himself what subjects 
he should pursue. This was perhaps less mischievous than 
it would now be, seeing the quadrivium of humanities was 
so fixed by tradition that most students fell into it as a 
* ii. and iii. are published ; iv. is to follow. 



GREEK EDUCATION. 137 

matter of course. Neither was there in old days that mul- 
titude of special subjects, totally unconnected either with 
each other or with a liberal education, which now infests 
our educational establishments, and causes the hurry after 
tangible results to displace the only true outcome of a 
higher education — that capacity to think consecutively and 
clearly, which is to be acquired by studying a logical and 
thoroughly articulated branch of knowledge for the sake of 
its accuracy and method. 

During most of the flourishing age of Hellenistic culture 
the rhetor was the acknowledged practical teacher ; and his 
course, which occupied several years, with the interruption 
of the summer holidays, comprised first a careful reading of 
classical authors, both poetical and prose, with explanations 
and illustrations. This made the student acquainted with 
the language and literature of Greece. But it was only in- 
troductory to the technical study of expression, of elo- 
quence based on these models, and of accurate writing as a 
collateral branch of this study. When a man had so per- 
fected himself, he was considered fit for public employment. 
In the latest times a special knowledge of jurisprudence 
became more and more necessary for public servants, and 
was provided for by special schools. We have, unfortu- 
nately, no minute description of the precise course of read- 
ing adopted by either Sophists or Rhetors, and are there- 
fore confined to this general description. But it is, in our 
days of hurry and of intellectual compression of subjects, 
a remarkable thing to contemplate the youth of the civ- 
ilized world spending four or five years in the mere ac- 
quiring of accuracy and elegance of expression after they 
had learned at school reading, writing, and the elements of 
science. 



138 gkeek: education. 

§ 83. In this account of ancient university life our at- 
tention has been ahnost exclusively confined to Athens, 
though there were other seats of education very celebrated, 
and in much request — Rhodes, Massilia, Tarsus, and, above 
all, Alexandria. Many Roman nobles preferred sending 
their sons to Massilia for their education — a Greek town, 
planted far away from the vices and luxuries of the East. 
Rhodes maintained its political freedom longer than any 
other Hellenic settlement, and was famous as a school of 
rhetoric. Tarsus, from which we know at least one splen- 
did specimen of a student — the Apostle Paul — always had 
a high and solid reputation for work, and it is very remark- 
able how the most serious of all the practical systems, the 
Stoic, is identified with that part of Asia Minor. After- 
wards iconoclasm found its cradle there, and thus this land 
of serious reforms over and over again forced upon the 
world an earnest view of life.^ It is worthy of note how 
constantly the great chairs at Athens were filled by men 
from these outlying schools ; indeed, a native Athenian in 
the Sophist's chair was a great rarity. Yet we know so 
little of the inner life of these remote towns that they can- 
not now afford us any materials for our inquiry. 

§ 84. The case is different with Alexandria, concerning 
which much has been written and recorded. But, in the 
first place, it is hardly correct to speak of education in 

* It is said that the exiled iconoclasts, driven out to Bulgaria, were 
the spiritual parents of the Hussites and other early reformers in Bo- 
hemia. From this new centre Protestantism spread across Europe. 
So that the Scottish Puritan, and, for that matter, the New England 
Puritan, derives his uncompromising earnestness from the remote 
source which produced both Stoicism and the most vigorous early 
Christianity. 



GREEK EDUCATION. 139 

Alexandria as strictly Hellenic, or even Hellenistic. It was 
the meeting-ground of all the faith and dogma of the old 
world. The Egyptian, Jewish, and Syrian elements were 
so strong there that, considering the absence of all old Hel- 
lenic traditions in this newest of all Greek-speaking towns, 
we could hardly use it as a fair specimen of the good and 
evil in old Greek training. We may add that up to the 
days of the great theological controversies — days so graphi- 
cally pictured in Kingsley's "Hypatia" — we know com- 
paratively little about the students of Alexandria. All our 
information clusters about the teachers. As we might ex- 
pect, Alexandria was regarded as the university of progress, 
the laboratory of positive science, in contrast to the con- 
servative and literary Athens. Nevertheless, even all the 
sound literary criticism of those days comes from Alexan- 
dria. For it is plain that the Ptolemies intended it not as 
a training-place for youth so much as a home for research, 
richly endowed with the means and materials for serious 
study — first of all, an ample library, then handsome build- 
ings, retirements, and adequate endowments. These con- 
ceptions, and the success in their execution, are profoundly 
interesting in the history of education, but are beyond the 
scope of the present work. 



INDEX. 



Abacus, 56 

Academy, the (of Plato), 1 21 

Accent, bad, 13 

JEschines cited, 26 

^sop, 20 

Age for beginning education, 15 

Alcibiades, 15, 59 

Alexandria, 50, 138 

America, 79 

'A[X(j)(ji}Tideg, 29 

Anaxagoras, 47 

Andromache, 8 

Anytus, 88 

Apollodorus, 59 

'Airoppa^ig, 18 

"Apxojv of students, 130 

Archytas's rattle, 13 

Aristophanes cited, 17, 31, 38, 

53, 59, 83 
Aristotle cited, 57, 61, 62, 1 10 

his school, 122 

Arithmetic, 51-56 

'A(rK(x)\idZitv, 16 

Astragali, 17, 19 

Astyanax, 8 

Athens, a university town, 82 

modern university of, 1 19 

BavKoXrjfiara, 20 
I^eethoven, 65 
r.i^l3i^ (top), 17 
Bevi^eXoQ cited, 20 
Boating not a Greek amusement, 
23 



Bologna, early schools of, 134 
Boxing, Greek, 29 

Callias, grammatical tragedy of, 

47 
Carleton cited, 39 
Carpet, tossing in, 133 
Chairs at Athens, 1 25 
XaXKrj fJLvla, 16 
XaXKKTfxog, 17 
Chappell, Mr. Wm., 67 
Chionis, feats of, 30 
Choregi, 131 
Chrestomatliies, 50 
Cicero quoted, 29, 39, 75 
Cinnamus quoted, 18 
Citliara, 67 

Claqueurs of Sophists, 123 
Clubs, student, 131 
Cobet cited, 71 
Community of wives and children, 

102, 103 
Competitive examinations, 14 
Confirmation, 72 
Course, length of university, 137 
Crammer, the modern, 81, 82 
Csardas, Hungarian, 63 
Curtius, Ernst, cited, 93 

Demosthenes cited, 40 
Aiadoxog, in the schools, 121 
Dialects, preservation of, 54 
Diogeneion, 134 
Diogenes Laertius, 121 



142 



INDEX. 



Diophantus, 133 
Dolls, 20 

Dositheus cited, 44 
Drawing materials, 59 
Dromeus, 27 

Edncation, general contrasts of 

Greek and modern, 3 
Egnatius Lollianus, 125 
Egyptian education, 4 
E('^ MfxCSXav, 17 
Elis, country life of, 14, 22, 28 
Encyclical course, 46 
Ephebi, 69 sq. 
Epicrates, law of, 75 
' ETroarpaKKJfiog, 17 
Eton and Harrow match, 23 
Eunapius cited, 124 
Euripides cited, 8 
Examinations, 14 
Exposing of children, 10-12 
Expression in music, 65 

Field sports, value of, 21 

Football, 18 

Foreign languages, ignorance of, 

13,50 
Form, in games, 23 

Games of boys, 1 5 sq. 

Olympic, 27, 30 

Genius, production of, 105 
Gods, the Greek, 24 
Goldsmith, 41 
Gorgias, 90 
Gounod's "Faust," 66 
Grammatical studies of Sophists, 

89 
FpafiixarKTTrjg, -ikSq, 46 
Grasberger quoted, 1 7, 28, 40 
Gregory Naz. cited, 133 
Grote cited, 77, 79, 101, 110 
Gymnasia, 121 

Hedge schools, 43 
Hellenic character compared to 
lioman and English, 7 



Heracleids, club of, 131 
Hermes, tutelary god of schools, 

43 
Herodes Atticus, 128 
Herodotus quoted, 6, 8, 24, 42 
History, the lessons of, 2, 1 12 
Homer cited, 7, 10, 36 ; used in 

education, 37, 45 
Hoops, 17 
Human nature not uniform, 1, 2, 

129 n. 
Hungarian gypsies, 02 
Hunting, 22 

Irish people threatened with new 

dangers, 1 20 
Isocrates, 9 1 sq. 

Journalism compared to Sophists, 

78 sq. 
Julian (emperor), 128 

KaXafjiov 'n'apajSrjvai, 16 
KvXicTTpai, 134 
K.vvdaXi(Tfi6g, 1 6 

Lacrosse, 18 
Lamia, 20 

Landscape, Greek notions of, 58 
Arj^iapxiKov ■ypa^fiareiop, 73 
Libanius cited, 126, 130, 133 
Longinus, 135 
Love-songs, contrasts in, 66 
Lucian quoted, 39, 40, 44, 123 
Lycon, will of, 123; dinners of, 

129 
Lycophron, 100 
Lycurgus (the orator), 75 
Lyre, 67, 68 

Marcus Aurelius, 125, 126 
Marriage between relations, 12 
rational theory of, 102 



sq. 
Massilia, 138 
Mi]\o\6v9r], 17 
Morra, 19 



INDEX. 



143 



Moses, 5 

the Attic (sc. Plato), 12 

Mullach, Fragg. Phil, 136 
Music, 35 sq., 1 13 

dangers of, 64 

Greek views of, 60 sq. 

NavaptVjUara, 20 
Notice-boards in schools, 44 
Novices at the university, 134 
Nursery rhymes, 20 

Ochlocracy, the so-called Atheni- 
an, 35 * 
Official dress, foreign love of, 129 
Olympia, Temple of, 58 
Olympic games, 28, 30 
Organization, ephebic, 75 
Orphans, care of, 14 
Orthodoxy in universities, 84, 85 
'OcyrpaKivda, 16 

Pasdagogus, the Greek, 26 

Ilai^aywyaov, 42 

Painting, 58 sq. 

Palcestra, 22, 24 sq. 

Pamphilus, 58 

IJapaypcKpetv, 53 

Parthenon, frieze of, 70, 72 

Paul, St., 81, 82, 138 

Pausanias, 27, 42 

Payment of teaching, 117 sq. 

nei'TaXLOiZ^v, 17 

Pentathlon, 27 

Peripatos, Aristotle's, 135 

TlepiTToXoL, 70, 74 

Permanence of educational prob- 
lems, 2 

Persian education, 5 ; in Xeno- 
])hon, 115 

^aivivda, 18 

Phayllus, feats of, 30 

Philosopiiv. Isocrates' definition 
of, 92, 93 

Philostratus cited, 118 

^pvyivda, 17 

nXayiavXoQ, 68 



Plato quoted, 5, 10, 12, 24, 28, 
31, 32, 48, 52, 62, 78, cap. xi. 
passim 

school of, 88, 89 



7 7- 

Platonopolis, 100 n. 
Pliny cited, 58 
Plutarch quoted, 15 
Pollux cited, 18, 71 
Polo at Byzantium, 19 n. 
Prefects (at school), 76 
Prodicus, 53, 85, 90 
Prohseresius, 124, 128 
Protagoras, 85, 89 
Protestantism, Stoic origin of, 

138 
Ptolemeion, 151 
Public schools, English, 29 
Pythagoras, system of, 89 

Quintilian quoted, 7, 52 

Rackets, 19 

Rationalism, Mr. Lecky's, 107 

Renan, E., cited, 49 

Rhetor, the duties of, 126 

Rliodes, 138 

Riding, Greek notions of, 73 

Roman education, 6 

character, 7 



Sagatio, 133 

Scales, Greek musical, 64, 65 

Scholarch, 121 

School, the term, 42 

appointments of, 42, 43 



Schoolmaster's tomb, 52 
Science, elementary, 55 
Sentiment about marriage, 107 
Sex, differences of, 104, 112 
Sleeping of infants, 9 
Socrates, 74, 87 
Sophist, the (title), 123 
Sophists, the, 78 sq. ; their fees, 

118 
Sophocles of Sunium, 124 
Sophronistffi, 125 
Spartan nurses, 9, 10 



144 



INDEX. 



Spartan mothers, 13, 38 

— ^ objection to athleticrf, 27 

training, 77 

morals, 108 

27rapr?7 draKTOQ, a club, 132 

Spelling, phonetic, 54. 

Speusippus, 118, 121 

Sports, real value of, 31 

Sprint races, 28 

Stoics, 129, 134 

Strabo, 50 

^rpofSiXog (huuiming-top), 17 

Studiedness of Greek eloquence, 

97 
Suidas quoted, 122 
Swimming, 46 

Tarsus, 1 38 

Theodorus, Homeric pictures of, 

45 
Theognis, 50 
Theophrastus cited, 43, 124 



Theseids, club of, 131 
Thring, Eev. G., cited, 58 n. 
Qpovoi, 125 
Thucydides cited, 42 
Tpil3u)v, 128, 134 

Uniformity in human natm'e, how 

far true, 1, 2, 129 n 
Uniformity in children, 2 
'Y7roypd<pia9ai, 52, GO n. 
'TTToOijKaL, 50 

Welcker cited, 48 

Women, education of, 103, 104 

Writing materials, 53 

Xenophon, 7, 22 
^varog, 25 

Zeller cited, 78 
Zither, Tyrolese, 68 
Zu)ypd^og, -ia, 58 



A History of Classical Ml Lileratiire, 

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TDDIES OF THE GIEEK POETS 



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